


Rules of Engagement

by ibreathethroughwords



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: New Republic Era - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Thrawn Trilogy - Timothy Zahn
Genre: Accidental Engagement, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Assassination Attempt(s), Blow Jobs, Crack Treated Seriously, Cum Play, Dubiously Consensual Blow Jobs, Feelings, First Time, First Time Blow Jobs, Kissing, Laughter During Sex, M/M, Miscommunication, Polital Intrigue, Political Kidnapping, Politics, Rimming, Rutting, Slow Burn, Taking liberties with fake cultures, hand kissing, military relationship, tags added with new chapters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-21
Updated: 2018-03-07
Packaged: 2019-02-05 04:59:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 30,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12787494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ibreathethroughwords/pseuds/ibreathethroughwords
Summary: Sometimes even moffs could be smart men: today seemed to be Enaid's day. "When shared with the right hand, the symbolism of the bread is one of peace and prosperity. Friendship. With the left hand, it is a marriage proposal. You proposed to Captain Pellaeon when you fed him that slice with your left hand and became engaged when he reciprocated.”





	1. Positive Identification: Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EustaceS](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EustaceS/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Accidents happen: it's a fact of life and Pellaeon understands. Sometimes one winds up in a terrible situation that was unpreventable and for which no one can be blamed. Those don't anger him, and if this had only been some sort of accident - some innocent mistake easily shrugged off and dealt with - then the star destroyer captain would have no need to be shaking with rage and embarrassment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EustaceS requested this two years ago. As usual, I didn’t follow it exactly.
> 
> Edited on 1/26/2018.

Accidents happen: it's a fact of life and Pellaeon understands. Sometimes one winds up in a terrible situation that was unpreventable and for which no one can be blamed. Those don't anger him, and if this had only been some sort of accident — some innocent mistake easily shrugged off and rectified — then the star destroyer captain would have no need to be shaking with rage and embarrassment. The small side room off the banquet hall that Moff Enaid had ushered the captain and grand admiral into only a minute ago is fairly plain compared to the adjoining room. They'd been instructed not to speak for a moment, and the Moff is having a series of harsh words with whoever is on the other end.

'Whoever.' As though they don't all know that the members of the Council of Moffs not in attendance tonight haven't found a way to closely watch the proceedings. Enaid is getting his ass lit into for not going over every single procedure and ritual when Thrawn has had enough and steps forward to cover the top of the comlink with the palm of his hand. That it isn't the polite, two-fingers-on-top interruption Grand Admiral Thrawn usually uses says a lot to Pellaeon about the state of his commanding officer's level of patience.

"What is the issue?" Thrawn demands, tone cold and quiet.

Moff Enaid stiffens under the commanding touch, then relents a little. He shuts off the comlink and grits his teeth. "You two are now engaged according to all of the traditions of this culture. That meal was broadcast to the entire Empire, and so was our press release stating our intention here tonight is to learn about and partake in the customs and traditions of our newest member planet."

Pellaeon's jaw drops. "You can't be serious. How were we not warned about whatever it was we did?"

"I did warn you," Enaid snaps at him. Pellaeon takes a threatening step toward the moff's irritatingly perfect jaw, his pretty blue eyes, and his graying blonde hair. Enaid has a face that _needs_ punched: why shouldn't he do it?

Thrawn, disappointingly, seems to disagree: he has a hand on each of Pellaeon's upper arms before he finishes taking the first step and pulls him back into place. "Do not," he orders calmly, releasing the human and moving to stand at his side. The positioning is clear: they are equals in their anger. Command unity is also of the utmost importance to show in front of any of the Empire's — _Thrawn's_ Empire's — remaining politicians. If Pellaeon is justifiably angry at any of the moffs, he can count on the grand admiral for support — and vice-versa.

Being given a direct order and a physical cue from Thrawn are all that keep the Corellian captain's temper in check while Thrawn repeats the demand. Enaid purses his lips together and then sighs dramatically. "You shared a piece of bread. That was fine. What did I say about the left hand, Grand Admiral?"

Pellaeon's eyes widen. The bread? He turns his head to look at Thrawn in time to see his eyes narrow and head tilt to the right far enough to indicate that he's curious enough to listen to what else Enaid has to say before he's either relieved of his post or his head.

"To be, 'cautious in using the left hand.' You then said you would explain further, later, and ran out of time." Commander and subordinate exchange an annoyed glance and simultaneously shift their stances to parade rest as they return to glowering at Moff Enaid. "What is the significance of all this? We don't have all day to wait on you."

Sometimes even moffs could be smart men: today seemed to be Enaid's day. "When shared with the right hand, the symbolism of the bread is one of peace and prosperity. Friendship. With the left hand, it is a marriage proposal. You proposed to Captain Pellaeon when you fed him that slice with your left hand and became engaged when he reciprocated.”

There is silence.

Then there isn’t.

Both men explode at roughly the same time, first at Enaid for getting them into this situation, then at each other for participating in such intimate rituals to begin with before Thrawn snaps at the captain to be silent with a glance at the moff and Pellaeon only barely manages to hold his tongue by clenching his fists as though they control it.

There is silence again less than a minute after the incredibly short outburst as admiral and captain glare daggers at each other. Moff Enaid shifts his feet and angles his body toward the door. “Should I perhaps wait out—?”

“No!” They snap together, and turn back to face the moff.

A quiet sigh is only sound in the room. Gray and red eyes meet again, this time in a silent and far more civilized discussion of how to handle this. Thrawn breaks the silence to speak for them both. "Fix it," he demands of Enaid. "There must be some way out of the marriage contract."

The look Moff Enaid gives them when he agrees to try isn't reassuring, but it's nice to have him out of the room. It's nice to have a moment to process everything, he thinks, where only one person — the only one here he completely trusts, to be honest — can see or hear him. Pellaeon allows himself to slump down heavily in a chair while Thrawn paces to the room’s wide window like a caged feline. Were they pulled in here for a different situation he would easily be able to bring himself to appreciate the view of the gardens over which the window looks. Their earlier tour of the grounds had included the expansive gardens: Pellaeon had been enamored with them. Thrawn had taken advantage of his knowledge of the plants and to ask all sorts of questions about the layout and meanings of this particular arrangement, or that one. 

He took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Nothing was set in stone yet, and with the fussy moff out of the room it was easier to think more clearly. If they could not get out of this, he and Thrawn would find some kind of arrangement that worked. Both of them were deeply private people, and could respect that about each other. It wasn’t like anyone was bothering to enforce the regulations on fraternization anymore.

Pellaeon turned his head to look at Thrawn to see if it was safe to approach only to find his commanding officer sinking into the seat next to him. At first glance, he looked calm and in control, but a closer examination of the lines around his mouth and eyes revealed anger. Whether it was more self-directed or focused on Moff Enaid remained to be seen.

“I apologize, Captain, for putting you in this position, and for losing my temper,” Grand Admiral Thrawn said. It seemed for once as though it was the admiral forcing himself to meet the captain’s eyes, and not the other way around. “I shouldn’t have allowed this visit to go through without forcing Moff Enaid to finish the briefing.”

“Apology accepted, sir, but you can’t possibly think I truly blame you for this anymore than you blame me.” Thrawn gives him a look that practically begs him to shut up and go along with it, so Pellaeon relents. “I apologize as well, for losing my temper. Both of us should be better behaved in front of a moff: someone has to set the example for them.”

Thrawn snorts softly at the bad joke, but there’s the ghost of a smile on his lips now. “All too true.” The smile fades as quickly as it came about, and the grand admiral slouches slightly. It’s only in his shoulders — he’s not hunched forward like his captain is, with his forearms resting on his knees and his cap in his hands — but they aren’t are straight as they ought to be. Pellaeon knows the only reason he knows this is because he’s spent a large amount of time studying the other male’s body language to make his own job easier.

“Captain, should we have ‘no choice’—” He’s worried about it, more about Pellaeon’s feelings than his own. That convinces the captain to straighten back up and turn to face Thrawn.

“Sir,” he interrupts, speaking with more conviction than he feels, “it will be fine. We will be fine. We’ve been through worse than a marriage contract and come out stronger.” Bilbringi was worse, the aftermath of it nearly tearing their fragile gains from them. There were a couple of other battles in the three years since that had tested them, plans gone awry, a nearly successful assassination attempt in which Pellaeon had ended up taking the brunt of the attack instead and Thrawn had lectured him for a solid hour when the captain was conscious again afterward.

A glare is his only punishment for interrupting. “I won’t force you to do this.”

“I know.”

If anything, his quiet understanding that Thrawn isn’t going throw him on the table and just have his way with all of this seems to frustrate him more. “We don’t even know if it’s a done deal, but if it is, it could be a lot worse for you.”

The glare intensifies. Pellaeon has only ever associated that look with a coldly spoken, ‘ _Explain, Captain,_ ’ so he carries through with the explanation. “You could have brought Moff Disra as your dining companion this evening.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1.) Thank you, TaunTaun, for the title!  
> 


	2. An Undesired Response

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His guards have stuck unusually close since the engagement: Pellaeon now has guards of his own, and they are, apparently, not allowing unsupervised time alone. Hiding a smile is tough: they are both professionals and hardly need adult supervision in order to keep their hands off each other. It isn’t as though there is anything going on between them that isn’t directly work related.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited 1/26/2018

By the time Thrawn has stopped glaring at Pellaeon for even mentioning Disra’s name, Enaid has returned and is looking quite grim. Neither of them bother standing for the news, and Enaid looks pale enough that Thrawn makes him take a seat as well. “I apologize for becoming distracted from telling you all I needed to. I failed in my duty to you both.” The human looks at the grand admiral first, then to the captain, and then sighs. “I must also apologize for this situation. I did what I could, but the governor says that if you disrespect their most sacred of traditions, they will go over to the New Republic and you will have to subdue them by force.”

“We’ll lose a good number of systems that joined peacefully and willingly,” Thrawn mutters. Pellaeon frowns. That the Empire has finally returned to the point where systems were willingly joining them has been a large milestone. Giving that up for the sake of their own dignity seems beyond selfish _if_ it’s unavoidable, yes. That Thrawn isn’t pushing to investigate this more closely, to speak with the governor himself, strikes him as strange.

Annoyed with Thrawn for trusting _Moff_ Enaid at his word, he turns his head and looks an accusation at the grand admiral. As the Supreme Commander, he is to have direct access to all planetary governors when he needs or wants that access. Why is Grand Admiral Thrawn giving up so damn easily? This is not yet — in his opinion, which they both know counts for quite a lot — a time to surrender. One emissary has been sent. Thrawn is perfectly kriffing capable of speaking to the man himself.

Thrawn seeks out his eyes, clearly commanding Pellaeon to trust him on this one thing. To play along, to follow Thrawn’s lead, and trust that they will come through intact and stronger on the other side. Pellaeon scowls at him. They have both put too much of their lives into this Empire they’ve built together over the last three years to back out now, but this is so damn indirect. Thrawn, however, is clearly making obedience an order. 

“What else do we need to know?” Thrawn asks, breaking eye contact with the captain when he has his answer to properly look at Moff Enaid again. Pellaeon’s scowl has — rightfully, _irritatingly_ — taken as capitulation: Thrawn will take this where he wishes now. “If you leave anything out this time, you will be the one to blame for it.”

Enaid nods. “I understand, Grand Admiral. I’ll go over all of it with you in summary now — including what they’ll expect from you behavior-wise when you leave this room — and give you a more in-depth description later tonight, if that’s okay?”

They look at each other again and Thrawn’s left eyebrow lifts minutely. Pellaeon sees it, glances at Enaid, and tilts his head slightly to the toward him. Thrawn’s eyes narrow threateningly, and Pellaeon nods his head slightly. Enaid is trying to weasel out of his duty as completely as he can: a typical politician. 

“We are charged with returning him,” Pellaeon comments, looking at the grand admiral again. He tilts his head slightly to the right, asking without asking, “and I haven’t filed the flight plan yet. It could take an extra day or two.” There’s no set date on when Enaid has to return. Pellaeon can make his life hell for a long time, if Thrawn gives him permission. He turns his glare on the moff again when the man shifts. The desire to deck the man hasn’t faded. “Or ten.”

“Calm down, Captain,” Thrawn doesn’t really chide him. Pellaeon’s anger at Enaid is amusing to him, providing him with a distraction, and the threat is precisely what Thrawn had requested. The captain is not being rebuked. “That will do. Don’t file a flight plan: hold off until we’re certain he’s being honest with us.”

“Yes, sir.”

Enaid swallows nervously as their attention turns back to him. Perhaps this is somewhat of a good thing: at least one of the moffs will be reminded that the Supreme Commander of the Imperial Military holds that title for good reason. “Now, Moff Enaid, if you would, please give us that summary.”

——

Having to hold on to Thrawn’s arm is odd. Allowing Thrawn’s touch over his clothing for more than moving about the tighter corners of the _Chimaera_ or some alien environment is odd. Calling Thrawn, ‘Thrawn’ is odd. Hearing his own first name is odd.

Thrawn pretending to be possessive and protective of him is odd. Oddly attractive. 

Pellaeon isn’t sure how he makes it through the next four hours of the event. They feel like a dream to him, or something out of an erotic novel: the handsome grand admiral in his white dress uniform and the senior captain in his dress grays that he’s been told bring out his eyes? It sounds like some stupid plot contrived by a middle-aged novelist who pumps out ten credit novels full of sexual inaccuracies and bad euphemisms twice a week.

Ship’s schedules rarely line up with planetary times, and when they return to the _Chimaera_ with Moff Enaid in tow and under guard by a mix of stormtroopers and Thrawn’s own personal guard, Pellaeon finds he only has an hour to shower, change into his duty uniform, and down enough caf to get him through morning meetings. Moff Enaid is sent off to his guest quarters ahead of them with orders that he is not to speak to anybody. Thrawn orders his comlink confiscated and the comm system in his room shut out of the system.

It takes them fifteen minutes longer than usual to get to the officers’ quarters because the two of them keep getting stopped by those who had received word of the announcement. The crew members don’t seem to know yet, which is good, but the officers clearly do. All Thrawn tells them is to keep it quiet for now, and it will be discussed later. That’s for the best, he thinks, because when he checks his messages after the shower there are far too many for him to be happy about it. Most are from the other flag officers, some from the _Chimaera’s_ senior officers. The ones obviously about the engagement he marks to deal with way later — preferably never — and the other ones he leaves alone as he goes about preparing for the day. 

He’s finally ready to put his boots on when the door chime interrupts him. Annoyed, Pellaeon goes over to open the door. Of course it’s Thrawn — and a member of his personal guard. The unimpressed look Pellaeon gives his superior likely says a lot more than, “Do we have to discuss this now?” ever could, so he doesn’t add to it as he moves away from the door to let him in. Thrawn will follow if he wants. 

In his white duty uniform instead of the ridiculously heavy dress uniform, the grand admiral is slightly less imposing. Pellaeon doesn’t miss the way his red eyes flick over him, studying him as well, as he pulls on a far more comfortable pair of boots than he had on earlier. “Cancel your morning meeting,” Thrawn says, settling into parade rest in front of him. The other Chiss has followed him in: it’s unusual, but given the last few hours, maybe it’s not entirely unwarranted.

Pellaeon looks up at him incredulously. Thrawn is fully aware of what he’s asking, he knows how packed everyone’s days are, _that the end of the fiscal year is rapidly closing on them_ , and he knows this is not a meeting he can reschedule. “Is this a request or an order?” He goes back to pulling on the last boot and adjusting his uniform.

“I’m willing to make it an order,” Thrawn elaborates calmly. “I’ll mind the bridge so the section chiefs can come meet with you in your office one-on-one this afternoon. Enaid claims he is ready to give us information and I’m not willing to give him any chance to get out of it or communicate with anyone off this ship in advance.”

“Yes, sir,” he replies, because what else can he say to that? His future hus- _Thrawn_ — he firmly reminds himself to prevent his stomach from doing the weird flip-flop thing — has already told him he has no choice in the matter. “Where shall I meet you?”

Seemingly satisfied by the captain’s obedience, Thrawn heads for the door. “Enaid’s quarters. An invasion of his personal space should serve to remind him who is in charge.”

“I’ll see you there, sir,” he replies calmly, and watches as the grand admiral and the guard let themselves out. 

It takes him less than five minutes to send a message canceling the meeting with a promise to meet one-on-one later, and another three minutes to convince himself to leave his quarters, sans the caf he had no time for. If Moff Enaid knows better, if he’s truly apologetic, he will have brewed and will offer some form of caffeine to the two officers currently running the military might of the Galactic Empire.

Three of Thrawn’s personal guards are waiting immediately outside his door when Pellaeon opens it. They part for him as he steps out and the door to his quarters slides shut and locks behind him. One remains behind as he starts down the hall, and the other two fall into step behind him. Surprised and frustrated by Thrawn’s paranoia, but refusing to allow himself to show it, Pellaeon says nothing until they’re in the turbolift to head to the guest quarters section of the ship. The only answer he can get out of them is that Thrawn has ordered them to guard him: he is now under their protection.

——

Moff Enaid has caf brewing in his quarters when Pellaeon arrives. The guards Thrawn left for him follow him in and take up position as sentries at seemingly predetermined positions in the room. This seems to annoy the moff, but he knows better than to attempt to override either man on their own ship. Thrawn hands the captain a cup of caf — black as the space outside — as Enaid gestures for him to sit next to Thrawn on the sofa. The moff takes the chair across from them with his own caf after one last glare at the guards and leans forward.

There’s a datapad in his hands, which he passes to the grand admiral. Thrawn accepts it and leans back with his caf to read it, turning it so Pellaeon can read it as well as he sips his caf. “This is a formal request from the Council of Moffs to immediately announce your engagement to the Galactic Empire and all territories currently under our protection. It will be announced as well that, since no one has been enforcing it, the regulation against fraternization in the military has been lifted.”

“Lifted as of what date?” Pellaeon asks, eyes still reading over the request. The regulations request feels like a trap, and Thrawn has worked quite patiently at getting him to listen to his instincts. “This is obviously meant to imply we’ve been breaking regulations: lifted as of what proposed date?” The moffs have no power to alter military regulations. It seems prudent to remind Enaid of that.

Enaid doesn’t answer for a moment — he stalls by taking a long drink of his caf — and the captain stops reading to look at him. Thrawn lowers the datapad to his lap. “I’m certain that is not the intention,” the politician responds at last, tone somewhere between chilly and frosty. “When the Council calls later, you are free to negotiate that with them.”

“What else does the Council ‘request?’” Thrawn asks in a voice that is slightly colder than the moff’s. There will be no negotiations: the moffs will obey, or the moffs will be dealt with. Pellaeon hides his smirk with a long drink of his caf.

“An engagement gala,” Enaid stoically answers. He sets down the cup of caf and sighs - it’s a little too melodramatic given that he’s not the either of the beings who are caught up in this surprise engagement. “We’d like to appoint a person to guide you in making the right choices for planning your wedding. There is some arguing on when that ought to take place, from what I understand.”

‘Right choices?’ The fist resting between his and Thrawn’s thighs clenches. There is no way in hell he is going to sit idly by and let the moffs plan everything: Pellaeon’s jaw tightens as he looks over at Thrawn. To Enaid, the Chiss probably looks composed and calm. To Pellaeon, who has been with him nearly every day for slightly over three years, Thrawn looks ready to punch the moff. “The captain and I have other things to attend to this morning,” he says after a moment, smoothly getting to his feet. Pellaeon follows his lead. “One of us will get back to you. We will finish the briefing later.”

Neither of them say a word in the corridors or the turbolift. Thrawn’s guards barely seem to breathe. When Thrawn finishes reading the document on the datapad he passes it to the captain. Pellaeon is fairly well incensed by the time he finishes it, but they remain silent as they continue to Thrawn’s actual office. Rarely do they ever meet in here. One of the guards follow them in — again — and this time Thrawn waves them off. Pellaeon holds himself at parade rest and averts his gaze while they quietly argue in their native language. It’s not an argument he can completely follow, at any rate, and something about this discussion seems oddly intimate. They argue almost like family, and if Pellaeon didn’t know better, he might think Thrawn is being scolded for trying to kick out the guard. 

There’s no way his guards think Pellaeon is dangerous, he considers with a frown. Even after Bilbringi, after everything with Rukh and the assassination attempt that had nearly claimed Pellaeon, there has never needed to be a guard in the room when it is only them. So why now? What is so different about today that his guards feel like Thrawn needs—?

—Needs a chaperone. The engagement is what’s different. His guards have stuck unusually close since: Pellaeon now has guards of his own, and they are, apparently, not allowing unsupervised time alone. Hiding a smile is tough: they are both professionals and hardly need adult supervision in order to keep their hands off each other. It isn’t as though there is anything going on between them that isn’t directly work related. The captain glances back up at the two of them, and Thrawn stops mid-word before recovering his composure.

That. That is interesting.

“Do you have something to add to the conversation, Captain?” 

Pellaeon straightens his posture so he can more easily look Thrawn in the eye and files that reaction away to parse later. “I don’t understand enough Cheunh yet to follow your whole conversation, sir,” he reminds them both. “However, if you’re arguing over whether we need a chaperone in the room with us, I don’t think one is necessary at this time. We have work to finish.”

Much to his surprise, it ends the argument. The guard glances back and forth between them a couple times as though to make certain they aren’t on the verge of ripping each other’s uniforms off and going at it on Thrawn’s desk before nodding and promising them he’ll be right outside. Thrawn rolls his eyes and locks the door behind him. Interesting, as well, that Pellaeon’s assurance is so helpful.

“My apologies, Captain. It is a tradition amongst my people that a betrothed couple are not left alone until their wedding night. My guards are—” Thrawn pauses, searching for the right word, “—excited for me to have the opportunity.”

“Understandable, sir,” he responds. “I hope I did not offend.”

Thrawn gives him a smile as he gestures for the captain to sit and moves to take his own place behind his desk. “You did not: thank you for speaking up. A united front, as we have discussed, tends to accomplish more.”

Pellaeon waits until Thrawn sits before doing the same, and doesn’t relax until told. Betrothed or not, there is an order to things, and he is going to take comfort in military courtesy and ceremony as his personal life is turned upside down. “To the matter at hand: I am not comfortable with allowing the moffs this much leeway. You did not seem to be either. Is that a fair statement?”

“Yes, sir.” Pellaeon is positive that letting the Council — comprised of mostly blood-thirsty moffs — decide much of anything will likely end in humiliation for the two of them.

“Good. I agree to only a few of their terms, but not as outlined in the document. Giving the moffs too much control over this would end in disaster for all of us. I think we can both agree that, while rescinding the regulation on fraternization is important, marking it as today is off-limits.” Thrawn watches him closely, and waits for Pellaeon’s agreement. On that issue he gives it whole-heartedly. The moffs can drag his career through mud: that’s tolerable. It had taken him far too long to make it to captain, and now there is no way Thrawn can ever promote him. Any attempts at ruining Thrawn’s career, or sullying the position of Supreme Commander, will make Pellaeon an enemy of the responsible party. At least one of them should get to finish out their career.

The captain nods, consenting to the date. “That’s perfectly reasonable.”

Thrawn gestures for the datapad, and Pellaeon hands it over. A light pen is pulled from some compartment on his desk, and Thrawn makes a note on it. “Our engagement announcement,” he begins, then stops, then sighs. “Did you see the second document?”

Considering the look of horror slowly growing on Thrawn’s face Pellaeon doesn’t think he wants to. “No. Do I—?”

The datapad is slid across the desk to him. Feeling a sense of foreboding, the captain forces himself to pick it up. What Thrawn has found is a draft of the suggested press release: Pellaeon detects Disra’s phrasing all over it. It’s horribly written, suggests they’ve secretly been in love for a long time, and Pellaeon finds several typos. There’s even a wedding date picked out, a time, and a place. None of them are things he would ever agree to.

“We should do it ourselves,” he says, making a face and sliding the datapad back over. There’s no way in Corellia’s Nine Hells they can let the moffs near any of this. “They are going to do this to us constantly: force us into choosing between their way or taking time out of our schedules to do it in a sane manner.”

Thrawn leans back in his seat and studies him. “I can temporarily relieve you of duty to focus on thi—” Fire and the heat of a thousand stars must have been in Pellaeon’s glare, as Thrawn stops himself mid-word. “Very well. What would you have us do?”

“When do we have to marry?” he asks. “If there isn’t a given date, maybe we can outlast this and quietly call off the engagement. Or you could call and speak to the governor directly, find out if this is even true.”

“A valid question. I’m not going to completely undermine the moffs. They’ve already broadcast this, and we need their cooperation on other matters, no matter how distasteful we find it.” Thrawn says, and pulls up the cultural information they have on the member world. It comes up on the holoprojector over his desk and they both lean in to sort and read information as they usually do for other situations. Pellaeon takes the first article to catch Thrawn’s eye when it’s flicked to him as the grand admiral keeps looking. There’s no point: the information is surprisingly easy to find.

Pellaeon isn’t pleased by the news, but he doesn’t comment on his own feelings. “Four of their months give or take half a month,” he says, already keying for a conversion. The number comes up, and they glance at each other, faces lit by the holographic articles and tools. Two-hundred fifty-five standard days, plus or minus thirty-two days. Thrawn pulls up their campaign schedule for that same period of time and they both relax minutely. There is a hell of a lot they have planned, but this seems to have truly been an accident, with regards to the date.

Thus far.

Watching Thrawn calmly put the date range in to the calendar as a drafted campaign, as something to plan and conquer, leaves the captain feeling strangely about it. “There. We alone can access the information, we can add information, dates, whatever sort of wedding stuff humans do, and no one else can get to it.”

“Whatever sort of—?” Pellaeon closes his eyes for a moment when he realizes he can’t tell if Thrawn is joking or not. When he opens them, he stares at Thrawn. “Are you serious?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They’ve been through enough by this point that it makes sense for Pellaeon to learn some Cheunh so he can follow any orders for safety given by Thrawn’s guards. Let us all sit and imagine Thrawn patiently teaching it to him. I know that’s what the rest of you are doing.
> 
> I was also dozing through the edit and writing part of this chapter. If you guys notice anything that makes no sense, is a typo, or flows poorly, feel free to point it out. I’m not going to be offended.


	3. An Escalation: Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thrawn solves the dilemma for him. “It’s only going to be as bad as we make it, Gilad,” he says softly. “We get along well enough, we trust each other, and I hadn’t imagined being anywhere else. I am sorry I didn’t come to you first... I will not do it again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited 1/26/2018

Thrawn is serious. It takes Pellaeon, Enaid, and those Thrawn stops to question the better part of two days to explain a wide variety of human marriage customs to the grand admiral, but by the beginning of the third day of their engagement, he seems to understand enough that he is ready to sit one-on-one with his betrothed again for a longer discussion about the Council of Moff’s demands versus their own wants. This time Thrawn comes to his quarters after managing to duck his guards. They lock the door and shut off their comlinks: only the watch officer on the bridge knows where they are and why, and he’s a good man. Both trust him not to break down and give away their location unless it’s actually an important matter.

Someone does try his door chime twice, so they move to his bed in the other room to make it easier to ignore. Neither of them are wearing their uniforms boots or tunics anymore. There’s a datapad being passed back and forth between them as they go over the moffs’ original list of “requests” with a light pen each in hand, crossing things off and adding other suggestions. 

It’s the first time they’ve actually been together, properly unaccompanied — outside of sickbay — since Rukh’s assassination attempt. This quiet moment has not come without terms, however, though they had been surprisingly easy to agree to. Pellaeon is to hide him from his guards — and the moffs — for a few hours, and they leave rank in the corridors. Behind closed doors, any time they’re out of uniform, any intimate moment they’re expected to have, rank is to be dropped. Thrawn refuses to spend their relationship as his superior officer, and Pellaeon can appreciate that.

“I spoke with an old friend,” Thrawn is explaining as Pellaeon gives up on Thrawn’s edits to Disra’s suggested announcement and decides they should get rid of the whole thing. It doesn’t feel natural at all. Nothing can fix it but eliminating it so he draws a large X over it. “He pointed out that it wouldn’t be fair to either of us to not separate our public and private lives. Eliminating rank behind closed doors seems like the best way to do that.”

Thrawn glances down with a snort at the single change Pellaeon has made when he hands the datapad back, but doesn’t contest it. “It makes sense,” the captain replies. “We both have far too much respect for the military as an institution to do anything less.”

Pellaeon has to bite his tongue to keep himself from adding a joke about their marital duties that he’s not sure his future husband — and really, _his future husband?_ — will appreciate. So far he has not allowed himself to dwell on what their married life will be like: even getting to that point seems like it won’t happen right now. Likely, Thrawn has at least one lover, and Pellaeon will not protest his keeping them at all so long as he is discrete about it. That the thought of Thrawn having an affair upsets him is easy to push away from his mind — who wouldn’t be jealous to be young enough by their species’ standards to still have an easy time finding one?

“Gilad?” Thrawn is looking at him with concern when he snaps out of it. “Where did you go?”

An unusually warm hand is on his bare forearm, both of them are only in their sleeveless undershirts and uniform trousers right now, and Pellaeon feels his touch almost like a brand. He doesn’t let himself look at the hand. “Sorry,” he says, and gives Thrawn a small smile. “Drifted.”

“You looked upset,” Thrawn says with a look Pellaeon’s been interpreting as a frown for the last two and a half years. The way his brow furrows _just_ so and his eyes pinch at the corners are one of the few ways he expresses concern that isn’t related to a ship or to a battle plan. Pellaeon remembers the exact moment he had figured that one out as well. It’s a fond memory, and brings a bit of a smile to his lips.

A brow arches in response to the smile. “Though you seem fine now.”

Pellaeon considers how to answer that, realizes he doesn’t know how to answer that, and then decides to just try his best. “I had a thought that upset me. It’s all right — nothing to worry about. It’s your face.”

“My face.” Thrawn has never worn such an openly confused expression in front of him: for the captain, who has made a hobby of studying his micro-expressions, it’s akin to being given a gift. His smile widens a little.

“What? No. Yes, that’s part of the answer, but I wasn’t upset over your face. That’s what made me—” Pellaeon stops himself when Thrawn holds up a hand. 

“You’re getting flustered. My face made you smile?” The captain nods, and glances away as a flush colors his cheeks. If any time is good to keep his mouth shut it’s then.

Thrawn has caught onto something that Pellaeon knows and he doesn’t, however, and now they have to talk about it. When it comes to information, especially something personal he may not have realized, Thrawn pursues it doggedly. The grand admiral locks the datapad and sets it aside, a sure sign that his current goal has changed. 

“Why?”

Pellaeon huffs softly, frustrated with this particular personality trait of his fiancé — never mind how often his dogged pursuit of information has likely saved lives or a battle plan. “I remembered when I figured out that particular facial expression means that you’re concerned about a _person_.”

That information surprises Thrawn: his eyes widen slightly, chin tilts down, and both of his eyebrows lift. The hand on the human’s arm slides down somewhat in a way that Pellaeon fears is going to linger on his mind for far too long later. “When was that?” he asks, shifting his position to be somewhat closer.

No, not closer. To see his face. Pellaeon finally looks up at him again, flush and all. “When those three lieutenants were knocked off the command walkway and into the crewpit. You came with me to see them in sickbay after the _Chimaera_ was free of the disturbance that threw them off balance.”

“I was surprised the one who hit his head lived. There was so much blood.,” Thrawn murmurs, lowering his eyes as he recalls the incident. The magnetic anomaly that had rocked the ship had caused many such injuries, but those three had been the worst off. “You had been studying me even back then?”

“The incident at Tatooine taught me that I had better if I was going to survive having you as my CO with my sanity intact.” Pellaeon wants to see how he’ll react to gentle teasing. Any lingering anger on his part over that completely insane stunt is either gone or well-buried.

Thrawn is trying not to smile. “I promised it wouldn’t happen again and it hasn’t.” Then something occurs to him and his expression becomes more serious. “Especially now.”

He hadn’t meant for this to get serious. Pellaeon isn’t ready for the serious conversations yet: he’s barely able to call his commanding officer his fiancé in the privacy of his own mind. “Thrawn - ”

“No, this is important. I never thought I would get married - and not to a man, or one with children already.” Thrawn knows that bringing up the captain’s ex’s son is not allowed, and Pellaeon’s eyes narrow dangerously. “Especially not one who considers himself father to at least 37,000 others. How are we to fit all of the kids at the — ah!”

Pellaeon’s arm is cold where Thrawn’s hand was, but he can’t bring himself to regret hitting the Chiss in the face with the pillow.

——

Things between them become easier after that. Moff Enaid is still their prisoner. When Moff Acire is sent to check on his status they hold her prisoner as well, but in separate guest quarters as far away from his as possible. She’s mostly a sweet young lady who has been manipulated by the other moffs into spying on them, so Pellaeon makes sure she’s comfortable and doesn’t go out of his way to irritate her.

After two more evenings spent holed up the captain’s quarters working out their engagement announcement and occasionally flinging pillows at each other instead of fighting, they run it by Enaid. He makes a list of things he likes and doesn’t like for them to change. When he hates it entirely, they run it by Moff Acire. She’s tough, for one so deluded, and not easy for them to intimidate so they don’t try. Thrawn insists they play the fatherly couple with her and it works like a charm. Pellaeon only has to remind her twice that they want _her_ opinion, not what she was coached to say. Being asked for her thoughts works well with her — Acire wants to feel special — and she gives them her honest thoughts.

She likes their revised announcement, but cautions that the Council won’t. They thank her for her input, and leave to go figure out from where to make the announcement now that it’s perfect.

It’s a quick decision: the planet that forced them into the engagement should be the place from which the announcement is made. Pellaeon spends the rest of that allotted meeting time reviewing watch reports and signing off on requisition requests that require his signature — and sending a few back for revisions — while Thrawn rearranges the Fleet. It’s important to have appropriate security in place for an announcement of this magnitude. They’ll be breaking the news in three days. Intelligence has increased their monitoring of the Council, the planet, and those officers that have been outspoken against Thrawn in the past.

Moff Acire handles contacting the media, putting together the cultural information for them, and everything else that needs done with reluctant assistance from Moff Enaid. Thrawn’s guards watch them, which makes it easier for Thrawn to slip away from them and join Pellaeon in his quarters after dinner the evening prior to the announcement.

The look on Thrawn’s face when Pellaeon lets him in tells him that Thrawn has agreed to something he shouldn’t have. It isn’t until the door is shut and locked that Pellaeon lifts an eyebrow. “It’s not that bad,” he begins, and Pellaeon turns away and heads for the bedroom. Passing officers and crew don’t need to hear this if it turns into a fight.

“The last time you said that was a few minutes after Rukh stabbed you and right before the CMO put you in an induced coma for twenty days,” the captain responds, snapping at him a little, whirling on his heel when Thrawn follows him into the room. 

“I was bleeding out, at the time,” Thrawn steps closer, and rests his hands on the shorter man’s arms, just above his elbows. The touch is gentle and more relaxing than Pellaeon wants it to be when reminded of what had nearly happened. “I’m not bleeding out right now.”

Pellaeon folds his arms over his chest — but he doesn’t dislodge Thrawn’s grip. “I suspect not bleeding out is going to make this less excusable. What did you agree to?” he asks as calmly as he can after a deep breath.

“An engagement gala.” Thrawn’s hands tighten when Pellaeon tries to pull away, though it’s nowhere near enough to hurt. “Hear me out, Gilad.”

They stare at each other for what must be a solid minute before the captain relents and waves a hand in the small space between them in a motion that vaguely means he should get on with it. “Fine.” 

Thrawn leads him to sit on the bed and sits next to him. Their knees brush and it makes Pellaeon wonder if he should be alarmed at how calming he finds the point of contact as Thrawn informs him of the situation. “I let Captain Harbid talk me into two of them. Both here. One formal, because it is apparently expected, and one informal the next day for the crew.”

“You can’t possibly think I have room in the ship’s budget for that,” is the first thing out of Pellaeon’s mouth. It sounds more like an agreement than he is comfortable with: the ship’s budget isn’t even the issue here. He shakes his head when Thrawn opens his mouth, and raises a hand, resting it on the other man’s chest to stop him. “Don’t. That’s not the point. I’ve been doing EOY and budget reports all day. What happened to discussing _everything_ related to this first?”

Making himself sound stern isn’t difficult: maintaining it in the face of Thrawn’s aura of command is. “It was spur of the moment, and I wasn’t thinking of it as an,” Thrawn’s command mask slips for a second to reveal nervousness, “as an _us_ thing.”

Pellaeon is angry. It’s finally starting to sink in that this is happening, and the universe has forced this on them both. They are searching for a way out of it without causing conflict. Their marriage saves lives, and the captain will do his duty for those lives. But it’s difficult. It’s forcing him to face his own insecurities at an age he shouldn’t have to deal with them again. Discussing them with anyone is out of the question and he can hardly confide his fears regarding his desirability to his fiancé _in_ his fiancé. And now this.

“Sorry, who are you engaged to?” he asks, removing his hand and leaning away a little.

“To you,” Thrawn replies, studying his face intently, “but the announcement - and subsequent celebrations aren’t about us. This engagement isn’t about us. We were trapped in it.”

_Trapped_. Thrawn feels trapped. Pellaeon averts his eyes. Of course Thrawn does. It’s not like he’s the only one that wasn’t expecting to be engaged this year. His body tenses: part of him wants to put distance between them, to move to the viewport and have that space, but he doesn’t like backing down. Never has.

Thrawn solves the dilemma for him. “It’s only going to be as bad as we make it, Gilad,” he says softly. “We get along well enough, we trust each other, and I hadn’t imagined being anywhere else. I am sorry I didn’t come to you first: Captain Harbid was at Bilbringi for their supply stop and ready to leave. I will not do it again.”

When Thrawn cups his chin to get Pellaeon to look at him, the captain relents. “See that it doesn’t, and I’ll accept your apology,” he says. He can’t bring himself to pull away from Thrawn’s touch, and is alarmed with his body when Thrawn’s hand slides to his cheek for a moment and he leans into it. It must have showed on his face: amusement at his alarm is far too obvious on Thrawn’s.

As the hand lowers, Pellaeon does stand. Distance feels safe now, like pulling away won’t create some kind of irreparable gap he can’t cross back over when he’s ready. The viewport gives him a comforting view of the void and the running lights of their support ships. The planet isn’t visible from here: the starboard side of the ship has that view. “I agree with you,” he says after a moment of looking out at the length of his ship. He has one hell of a view. “On all points. I would have been much more vocal if I didn’t think we could make a marriage between us work.” Behind him he hears one of Thrawn’s boots hit the floor. His are newer and some force is still required to remove the damn things. “I still have concerns I’m not ready to voice, but I’m not afraid we can’t do this.”

There’s a rustle of fabric behind him — Thrawn’s uniform trousers against his blankets — that has Pellaeon brace for a touch from behind. Thrawn’s body is warm behind him, but no touch comes. A glance over his shoulder reveals the grand admiral appears to be admiring his body. 

“What are you doing back there?” he asks, turning back to the window with a blush.

“Now I’m watching your neck blush,” Thrawn says, stepping closer. “I was appreciating the view.”

Pellaeon’s hands flex at his sides. He wants to flee, to order Thrawn out, to lean back against him and let the warmth of his skin relax him. In the end, he does none of those: it seems like it will be more educational to see what his fiancé does. Thrawn steps forward to stand next to him. The backs of their hands brush, and then Thrawn is holding his hand and Pellaeon is adjusting their grip to lace their fingers together. It’s good. Odd, holding a hand sized like his own, but good. Warm, too, not just on his hand, but how it makes him feel all over. 

“Is this okay?” Thrawn asks after a moment of both of them pretending they aren’t holding hands.

“Yes,” Pellaeon answers — hopefully not too quickly. “Why are we holding hands?”

Thrawn looks over at him, and uses the grip to turn Pellaeon to face him. “I should hope you would be comfortable allowing your future husband to touch you in some way,” he explains quietly. 

To the captain, he looks uncertain, afraid. Having that look directed at him is disquieting. He squeezes Thrawn’s hand, hoping to reassure him through touch as well as words. “I’m learning my comfort level as we go. This is fine. I like this.” Pellaeon tilts his head slightly as he looks at him. “Do you like this?”

“I do. I liked it when you had your hand on my chest as well,” Thrawn admits. That’s something he doesn’t mind giving the grand admiral, so he lifts his other hand, and rests it on Thrawn’s chest. Habit formed when Thrawn was in the medical coma puts it over the place Rukh had stabbed — two centimeters shy of his heart — and the grand admiral covers it with his other hand. 

“Like this?” Pellaeon’s thumb rubs over his heart while his palm absorbs the rhythm of the alien heartbeat. Two years later it still frightens him how close they had come to losing Thrawn. Bilbringi is his least favorite place to go, and he spends each visit to the shipyards resisting the urge to lock Thrawn in his quarters. The grand admiral avoids the bridge while they’re there if Pellaeon is awake.

“Yes. You rarely touch me first, but when you do, it’s always here. Why?”

Pellaeon hand curls slightly in Thrawn’s shirt - a simple black tank top like his own - as he considers how best to explain himself. There’s really only one reason for it. “Reassurance,” he decides, watching Thrawn’s red eyes widen in realization. “If I can touch you here, you’re fine. I can feel your heart still beating, and there’s no knife point pushing through.”

Thrawn releases the hand he’d been holding to brush a strand of brown and gray hair from the captain’s face. The taller man is frowning slightly. “You’re having nightmares again.”

“I’m having them still,” he corrects, and feels brave enough to set his other hand on Thrawn’s waist, watchful for objections. “They never fully went away: I stopped having them as frequently.”

“You should have told me.” The scolding is as gentle as the kiss pressed to his knuckles when Thrawn brings the hand on his chest to his lips. Pellaeon can’t bring himself to argue back for once: Thrawn’s lips are warm and soft. 

They’re completely distracting.

It takes Thrawn a moment to realize he’s done anything. His cheeks turn a light shade of lavender, and he politely excuses himself for the evening. Pellaeon lets him go. He suspects they both could use a few hours alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m posting when I’m two chapters ahead for this one. Enjoy.


	4. An Escalation: Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His hand is lowered, and Pellaeon is hyper-aware of where Thrawn’s lips were on his hand. They are definitely about to kiss. How he knows, he isn’t sure. Neither of them are throwing off a vibe or overtly asking for a kiss. It’s just something that is going to happen, right now. Pellaeon parts his lips, Thrawn cups the back of his head to hold him still, and ends up leaning his forehead against the captain’s.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited on 1/26/2018.

The morning of the engagement announcement is hellish. All of his section chiefs are unusually energetic or tense during morning meeting: save for security, dietary, and sanitation, Pellaeon really doesn’t see the need for the expended energy. End-of-Year is still a thing they all have to worry about despite any excitement about the engagement, and he makes certain to remind them. When he realizes he’s reminded the increasingly exasperated group four times, he pauses to take a slow breath in and out, and apologizes for his distractedness. 

The grins on their faces when they tell him to think nothing of it are more than a little discomforting. 

Not until around 1030 does Pellaeon feel ready to acknowledge that he is actually quite nervous about this afternoon and evening and needs a moment to himself that won’t come until much later. Perhaps it is fortunate for him that the Empire never runs out of work to keep him distracted. Thrawn has had him — and Pellaeon has had his aides — preparing a list of ships and bases due for inspection at beginning of the next fiscal year and it is much longer than Pellaeon was hoping for. It is the only downside he can see to how well Thrawn’s expansion and rebuilding of the Empire has been going: each year’s list has been longer than the last, full of new bases and capital ships. That means losing Thrawn for an extra week after Fete Week — they’re up to a month apart after the holiday now — while the Supreme Commander is off doing inspections and boosting morale. Hopefully it won’t be immediately after Fete Week, but if it is, well, they’ll make do.

That’s a month of doing wedding planning from opposite ends of the Empire, with the only contact between them that of official Fleet business. He doesn’t mind running the ship by himself, Pellaeon can handle that easily, but he will miss his future husband. Any time they’ve been apart these last three years has always been lonely — for both of them. 

It feels like the theme of the day as well: every time he and Thrawn have tried to find a moment alone today to discuss anything, they have been interrupted. Finally, he sends a message down ahead when they are approaching the last forty-five minutes of their work day for the grand admiral to kick out anyone in his office, clears both their schedules, and gathers up data cards for all the Fleet business they _have_ to get through today, his own datapad, and leaves his office for Thrawn’s office instead of the command room. Something tells him he’s probably trying to hide as well. 

The guards glower but let him in without following this time. Thrawn is finally alone, and gestures for Pellaeon to have a seat as he finishes whatever he’s reading over. “Has the entire galaxy been conspiring to keep us apart today?” the grand admiral mutters to him as he signs off on it and gestures for the datacards. 

“It certainly feels like it,” Pellaeon replies as he complies. “That first one is the list of ships and bases due for inspection next year.”

Thrawn pauses with it halfway inserted into the reader slot, as though trying to decide by the captain’s tone alone if he wants to look. But he’s halfway there, so he pushes it in the rest of the way, and winces a little at the size of the list. “I was wondering what was taking you so long,” he mumbles, scrolling through it. “How long will I be gone on this inspection?”

“My ADCs are fairly certain your inspection tour will take a minimum of three weeks, and no more than four, sir.”

Their eyes meet, and Thrawn frowns. “Tell them not to confirm any arrangements yet,” he orders after a moment. “Being away for four weeks doesn’t sit right with me at the moment.”

“I thought you might say that, sir,” Pellaeon says, and smiles slightly at the exasperated look he receives for using ‘sir’ in private twice in a row. “Lieutenant Tschel is looking into the regulations regarding inspections, but we’re both fairly certain you’re not required to start them right away.”

Thrawn looks like he wants to kiss him: it reminds Pellaeon of the previous night, so he plows ahead on their to-do list to avoid thinking about it. By the time they get through the rest of the things they need to discuss, it’s nearly time for them to get ready. They leave the office together, speaking amiably about the addition to the Bastion garrison, and part in the corridor outside their rooms.

Before he can be alone long enough for nerves to really set in and set his hands to shaking, Pellaeon shaves again, then begins pulling on his dress uniform as he mentally recites the plan for the afternoon and evening. The two Moffs they’ve kidnapped, some of their own staff members, and a few of his fellow captains will be behind the podium with them. Thrawn is delivering the statement. Thrawn will field the questions. They will have approximately two hours to themselves after they return while everything is set up, and then will be expected in the _Chimaera’s_ aft hangar bay.

It will be okay.

_It will be fine._

His door chime is going off, and it takes him a minute to notice. Pellaeon sets down the medal he’s fighting with — everything from the Clone Wars is getting dull on the pin side and difficult to pin — and opened the door. It is Thrawn, somehow already dressed, and perfect-looking, and —

Almost. Pellaeon looks him over more critically. “No,” he says, putting his foot down. 

“No?” Thrawn repeats, incredulous.

“Go fix your hair — you don’t need to try anything new. It looks weird. I’ll leave the door unlocked but you aren’t coming in here looking like that.”

Pellaeon hears an, “I told you,” as the door closes and he returns to dressing. Likely, the commenter is the same guard who had heard of a custom called ‘spiking’ and tried it a day or so ago. He’d been immediately ejected from the room to go fix himself. Unlike that guard, Thrawn returns within five minutes, his appearance vastly improved, with no hair glue on his fingers, not cursing.

“Better?” his fiancé asks, stepping closer to help Pellaeon and batting his hands away from the uniform as he takes the medal from him.

“A vast improvement,” he approves. Letting Thrawn handle his medals is faster than doing it himself, and the intimacy is calming. “How’d you get dressed so fast?”

Thrawn arches an eyebrow at him. “I let the guards help,” he says. “You’re allowed to let your guards help, so long as their skin does not touch yours. Or let them make sure your room is secure, at some point in time.” Pellaeon rolls his eyes and opens his mouth to argue, but Thrawn shakes his head firmly. “I will insist on it today. Too many people will be aboard the ship, and you _will_ let them do their jobs and make sure rooms are secure before you enter them.”

“I was fine before,” he protests as Thrawn finishes and smoothes a hand over the medals to make sure they’re firmly in place.

“You were not engaged to me before,” Thrawn argues back, clearly tapping into his reserve of patience. “It’s my job to protect you, Gilad.”

Pellaeon lifts an eyebrow at that. “Your ‘job?’ Am I some helpless child?”

Thrawn scowls at him and his eyes flash. “You know I don’t think you helpless. Stop it.” Pellaeon holds his tongue, but folds his arms over his stomach — Thrawn bats them away to put the last two medals in place — as Thrawn continues, “The moment we became engaged you became even more of a target than you already were as my second-in-command. I’ll take no chances with your life.” There’s a short pause as Thrawn draws in a breath. His next words are sobering. “I almost lost you twice: once when I almost died, once when you almost died. Not again. You will allow me to keep you safe, Gilad, and you _will allow your guards to do their job_. Please.”

It’s the most passionate he’s seen Thrawn argue about anything lately. He’s never heard Thrawn beg. “Okay,” he capitulates with a quiet sigh. “I’m sorry — I understand your reasoning.”

“Thank you,” Thrawn says sincerely. At some point during the brief argument he’d taken Pellaeon’s hand. Another kiss is brushed over the knuckles, but this time neither of them pull away or break eye contact. 

“Thank you,” Pellaeon says quietly. His hand is lowered, and Pellaeon is hyper-aware of where Thrawn’s lips were on his hand. They are definitely about to kiss. How he knows, he isn’t sure. Neither of them are throwing off a vibe or overtly asking for one. It’s just something that is going to happen, right now. Pellaeon parts his lips, Thrawn cups the back of his head to hold him still, and ends up leaning his forehead against the captain’s as the door opens.

Both of them sigh as one of Pellaeon’s guards enters and clears his throat — purely a human he’d picked up from the crew — to get them to separate. “Kriffing hell,” the human swears softly, but obeys and turns around as Thrawn groans. “What is it, T’hama?” Pellaeon makes a point of not releasing Thrawn’s hand.

“Your shuttle is ready, Captain, Syndic.” T’hama bows, but doesn’t leave the room. 

“Thank you,” they reply in unison, both snapping enough to make it clear that he’s dismissed. When the guard doesn’t budge, the captain sighs. They probably shouldn’t be late to their own announcement.

“You’re missing your gloves, hat, and comlink,” Thrawn helpfully comments.

T’hama stares at them both. “They are behind the grand admiral,” he points out in his accented Basic. “You said to make sure you leave on time, Syndic Mitth’raw’nuruodo. It is time to leave.”

Pellaeon laughs quietly as he reaches around Thrawn to put on his cap, slide his comlink into his trouser pocket, and grabs his gloves. “You’re setting a terrible example for your second-in-command,” he adds, figuring he should be unhelpful as well as he follows T’hama to the door. “Come on, or I’ll go eat bread with Enaid.”

Thrawn snorts, but follows them out. Pellaeon pulls his gloves on as they walk to the turbolift. “What was it?” he asks Thrawn. “On your right arm?”

“And no skin contact. For you, not with anybody today out of your quarters.” 

They step into the turbolift, blissfully empty save for their group. “Why not for me?”

“In case my own people are watching. I’ll explain later, but I do need to pretend to adhere to Chiss customs in public. That means I need you to do so as well.” Thrawn rests a hand on the small of his back. A guard brushes it off, immediately drawing a huff from the human.

Euphemisms are sufficiently irritating to the majority of his guard if they sound straightforward enough, and if they insist on telling two grown men how they can touch, revenge will be had. “I assume the matter of your people watching doesn’t require much discussion, or it doesn’t for the press conference, and you’re going to prepare me for them while we’re alone afterward?”

Thrawn glances down at him, catches the meaningful glance at the guards, and smirks in a way that does things to the captain a single smirk shouldn’t be able to do to a man. “Yes, Gilad. I intend to prepare you thoroughly while we’re alone. It’s my idea, so it falls to me to make sure you’re ready.”

“It’s only fair, Thrawn,” he agrees. What had he done early this morning that nearly sent the grand admiral walking into the crewpit? Pellaeon looks down, and then looks up at him through his lashes. “There will be many people there: thorough preparation is absolutely necessary.”

Someone chokes when Thrawn blushes. Pellaeon doesn’t think it’s Thrawn, but the turbolift stops at exactly the right moment and his guards step out. The captain follows them, and then stops to wait for Thrawn when his betrothed doesn’t immediately follow them. “I had to explain to my guards that you and I weren’t having group sex with them later,” he breathes into Pellaeon’s ear.

“Your cheeks are flushed,” the captain calmly replies. “Is that all you were doing?”

Thrawn glares at him, and doesn’t answer. Pellaeon smirks, and takes the offered arm: Thrawn’s guards still haven’t emerged from the turbolift.

———

The press conference had gone well. Pellaeon had towed the line between dutiful captain and adoring future husband well, or so he has been told. Thrawn’s job, they had decided, was to convey the role of a protector to the masses and the holocameras. The short reception afterward had been tolerable as well, but Pellaeon is grateful to be back in his own quarters, their guards locked out in the corridor separating their rooms after Thrawn had firmly held him to his side to force him to first permit a search of his quarters.

They rest on his bed, dress tunics carefully taken off and laid out on his desk and chair, boots on the floor somewhere, as Thrawn runs a hand through the captain’s hair. Most of Thrawn’s briefing had been given on the way back to the _Chimaera_. Now they are actually resting, having their first true quiet moment as a couple. No planning for anything, no work: only resting together. “You need to cut it again soon,” Thrawn observes.

Pellaeon grunts in response. Regulations allow him roughly another month of growth before he has to cut it again, and that’s when it will be cut. There’s no bargaining on that, not for him. Somewhere in him he finds the willpower to roll over and face his betrothed. “This still doesn’t feel real,” he comments, changing the subject. His fingers lift to trace over the visible edges of the scar the Noghri left there that peek out of the undershirt. “Being engaged, I mean. I’m not still having those rough waking nightmares where you’re alive but you’re also not.”

There is silence between them for several minutes. Thrawn is pensive now. Eventually a soft sigh draws Pellaeon’s eyes up from the scar and Thrawn sits up. “I was going to save this for after the party, but I think we both need this now. Stay here, please.”

Sometime between when Thrawn goes to speak with the guards and when he actually returns Pellaeon has managed to pull himself into a sitting position. There’s a small box in his hands, and he sits next to the captain. “How do you accept gifts from others now that you are engaged to me?” Thrawn quizzes him.

“With the same hand it was given.”

Thrawn nods. He’s answered that question correctly, but there seems to be another half to it. “And from me, or other family members?”

“Both hands,” Pellaeon answers.

“Giving?”

Pellaeon’s mind blanks for a moment. They must have discussed it, or Thrawn expects him to extrapolate. “The same?”

A scolding look crosses his face, and Pellaeon gives him a fond smile. He knows the next words out of Thrawn’s mouth will be, _“Are you asking me or guessing?”_ So he answers the question before it can be asked. “I’m guessing. I don’t remember discussing that particular subject when we were going over the ring exchange my fellow Corellians talked you into.”

“The same,” Thrawn relents, smiling back. “We did not discuss it.” The box - ornately carved wood, stained a dark blue that reminds Pellaeon of the highlights in Thrawn’s black hair - is barely bigger than Thrawn’s cupped hands. He accepts it from him as he was taught, is rewarded with a small, private smile, and sets the box down in his lap to study it for a moment before opening it.

There is no obvious latch or hinges and the top doesn’t pull or slide off. Pressing one of the carvings is what opens the top. Pellaeon lifts the lid back when it opens, and his jaw drops. The leather is expensive, of a fine grain, and has been stained to match the box. “Pull it out,” Thrawn encourages him, and Pellaeon does. It turns out to be a tasteful but expensive chrono that has a band which has how they met worked into the leather in pictures.

“Thrawn,” he exhales when he works out what it is. Pellaeon turns to look at him. 

“May I put it on you?” his fiancé requests.

When the captain nods his assent, Thrawn carefully closes and moves the box out of the way, and then puts the chrono on Pellaeon’s wrist. He’s awfully smug about rendering his second-in-command speechless with art, but is easily distracted by the way the color of the leather looks against his betrothed’s skin. 

“Thank you,” Pellaeon manages after a moment. “Who is the artist?”

Thrawn isn’t shy about admitting to that either, though he can’t seem to take his eyes off the chrono on Pellaeon’s wrist. “It was me. Traditionally, it is a bracelet, but there are regulations on jewelry. It’s meant to be something meaningful, like a couple’s history.”

“I love it,” he says and means it. Pellaeon’s torn between staring at the chrono’s band and staring at Thrawn’s face. The chrono will be there later, he decides, and gives Thrawn his full attention. “You know I don’t have the same vocabulary or eye for art that you do, but I love it. I love that you made it.”

The grand admiral beams at him: his delight in his fiancé’s happiness is the reason Pellaeon leans forward to kiss Thrawn’s cheek.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chiss messing around with weird human hairstyles just sounds so fun. Tell me you aren’t picturing one with BsB ramen-hair or frosted tips right now!


	5. An Escalation: Part III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pellaeon badly wants to hit him. Or kiss him. Pellaeon wants to punch his lips repeatedly with his own, but if he gives in to the urge to do so Thrawn gets out of answering the question and he’s not giving the man any room to retreat.

The party is going well, except that Pellaeon has forgotten to ask how he is to explain that he isn’t allowed skin contact, or if he’s even allowed to explain it. Or state it. He also isn’t allowed to speak to his guards except to give them an order or take direction from them. Thrawn is whisked away shortly after their arrival by the moffs they were still holding hostage, and Pellaeon is drawn away by the other captains that have been with Thrawn from the start. They are allowed to know what is going on, but won’t be let in on it until meetings the next day: all he can tell them for now is that something had happened, and they are engaged.

Former Imperial Senators and other well-known persons are in attendance: eventually, he ends up having to socialize with some of them as well. It’s a relief when he finally spots Thrawn making his way over to him. Pellaeon takes his arm again and it’s as though they were never separated. That fact is one he refuses to dwell on though he knows he’s going to have to face it eventually. One thing he’s been asked by a couple of men who have been married a long time is if they’ve talked at all about how their marriage is going to work. So far he’s avoided answering the questions, but Harbid is on to him and the old man can’t be avoided forever. The “helpful” conversation will happen to him at some point.

First, however, he has to get through a ring exchange ceremony. The holdover from the days of the Old Republic goes smoothly: the tradition is still widely practiced by Corellians all over the galaxy. A few words are said about them making certain to give marriage all the respect and consideration it is due, and then they place the ornately decorated silver bands on the third finger of each other’s right hands. On their wedding day, they will move them to the left hand. 

The night goes quickly after that. Pellaeon isn’t pulled away by anyone else, though he does see Harbid pull Thrawn out of the room. Their conversation doesn’t last long, but Thrawn is thoughtful when he returns. He’s also ready for them to say their goodbyes for the evening. 

They go to Thrawn’s private quarters this time. It’s the first time Pellaeon has been in here since he’s made sure they were fit for the grand admiral to move into. His quarters are sparsely, but tastefully, decorated. There is art on display: Thrawn uses it well. It fills corners of the suite that would otherwise be too bare. In the bedroom, the art is more sensual, and as Pellaeon is guided to sit on the large bed he takes it in. He’s not Thrawn: he still can’t dissect a man by his art choices, but he can appreciate them.

Once he sitting down Thrawn sits next to him and takes his hands. “I have been informed that there are several things we need to discuss.”

Harbid must have decided to have the conversation with Thrawn instead. 

Pellaeon realizes they’re both still wearing the gloves, and wishes they weren’t. It strikes him as too impersonal for what is likely to be the most intimate conversation they’ve had so far. Most likely this is going to include topics he has avoided thinking about or bringing up with Thrawn. Bracing himself, he nods, agreeing to the conversation anyway. He trusts Thrawn, knows his views will be heard and listened to, and they have never hesitated with each other on difficult topics before. It won’t serve either of their interests to start now.

“Where would you like to start, Thrawn?” he asks, because he needs to take some of the lead, but he won’t take all of it.

“There’s so much I’m not sure where to begin,” Thrawn admits after a moment of careful consideration. “I am not sure how human marriages work.”

Pellaeon squeezes his hands. “It varies from couple to couple and culture to culture.”

“What varies the most?”

“If the couple lives together, shares a bed, finances, property, how often they engage in relations and how,” he managed without blushing, “and with whom, as well as if the couple has children.”

Thrawn is quiet for a moment, considering his words. He releases his fiancé’s hands to remove his gloves, and then the captain’s. When he joins their hands again Thrawn’s skin is hot on his — yet Pellaeon shivers as his fingertips brush over the smooth skin of the inside of his wrist. “An intimate conversation deserves a more intimate touch,” he explains. Glittering red eyes are intent on the human’s face with an emotion Pellaeon can’t name Thrawn is definitely focusing on him to the exclusion of the rest of the galaxy at the moment. It’s a form of intimacy the captain has grown far more comfortable with over the last three years than most other types. When they aren’t arguing, having Thrawn’s attention devoted to him has lead to breakthroughs in understanding for him — whether the subject is war, art, their own Empire, or the grand admiral himself.

Attention from Thrawn relaxes him.

“With which topic would you like to begin?” Pellaeon asks, nudging Thrawn into choosing with a quiet question.

“Technically, we already live together.” Thrawn isn’t quite looking at him. The shoulder of Pellaeon’s dress uniform has become very interesting all of a sudden. “Though I doubt sharing a ship is what you meant.”

He has to fight off the small smile threatening to break out. “It isn’t, no.” Seeing the usually unflappable admiral nervous to any degree is unexpectedly endearing. Of course he’s nervous: both of them are getting older and discussing this kind of intimacy and mutual invasion of privacy is —

Pellaeon’s thoughts come screeching to a halt. Thrawn wouldn’t have pointed out to him that they are already living together if he wants their arrangements to change. And why should he? Both of them are reserved men, but the grand admiral is extremely private. Married life is going to be hell for him if he has to let Gilad in any further than he already has. And lovers? No, why would he want that. He hopes that the realization — and especially the disappointment he has _no right_ to be feeling and no idea where it came from — isn’t showing on his face. 

“It isn’t, but there’s no reason we have to change our living arrangements,” he adds respectfully as he recovers himself. “I know you value your privacy.”

Now Thrawn is looking at him oddly. “I do, but I have my office and the command room should I desperately require a break from the company of others. Yours is not an intrusion, Gilad.” They stare at each other, still holding hands. “I am fine sharing quarters with you: I would prefer it.”

“You would?” Pellaeon asks. Or states. He isn’t sure if he means to ask a question or if he’s repeating those two words to make sure they’re real.

Thrawn’s the one hiding a smile now. “I would. In fact, Gilad, I would prefer to have you sharing my bed.”

“Why’s that?” 

“I think I’d prefer to show you, if I may?” Pellaeon nods his assent, and Thrawn flashes him a quick smile. His tongue wets his lips as Thrawn stands, and pulls him to his feet. The grand admiral is quick to undo the captain’s belt and let it drop it to the floor. Curious as to where this is going, he lets Thrawn remove his dress uniform tunic. It’s pushed off his shoulders and then also falls to the ground. Pellaeon is sat down on the side of the bed, so Thrawn can pull off his boots. 

After Thrawn gets himself to a similar state of undress he stretches out on the bed, and gestures for the captain to join him. Unsure of what to expect, Pellaeon goes to him. He’s pulled down against a broad, muscled chest by arms like tree trunks. The warmth of his body is overwhelmingly relaxing: in no time at all, Pellaeon is putty against him. Thrawn is warm, safe, and smells divine.

“That’s why,” Thrawn murmurs to him. “In part.”

Pellaeon feels more cared for than he has in years “What’s the other part?” 

“Physical intimacy. Sex.” The human lifts his head right up off of Thrawn’s chest to look at him at those three words. They aren’t what he was expecting to hear. “With you.”

“I’ve never done anything like that with a man,” he admits, cheeks flushed. “Is it, ah, similar to being with a woman?”

Thrawn chuckles warmly. “Some aspects are. I would not be adverse to teaching you: preferably via hands-on demonstration. When you’re comfortable with it.”

That’s news. It’s good news: the captain’s need to feel desired is certainly a little more satisfied than it had been all week. Still, doubts linger. “Are you sure?” Thrawn raises an eyebrow at the question and Pellaeon forces himself to explain it. “You’re not obligated to have sex with me because you accidentally proposed to me.” The other eyebrow lifts, and the human sulks slightly, lowering his head back to Thrawn’s chest and muttering, “You could easily do better.”

“Ah, there it is,” Thrawn murmurs. A deep breath, and then he rolls them so Pellaeon is lying on his back beneath him and Thrawn is above him. The Chiss rests on his elbows and forearms to keep his weight mostly off the captain. It doesn’t matter what he does — it truly doesn’t — Pellaeon is finding it quite difficult to breathe at the moment. Thrawn presses their foreheads together.

“Thrawn — ” he starts to protest, because he doesn’t know where this is going.

“Hush.” Annoyed at his own obedience, Pellaeon falls silent. Thrawn draws back. “I am not suggesting it out of obligation, Gilad, nor do you get to decide who is good enough for me. Your mind, your attitude, your willingness to argue with me and ensure I’m always doing the right thing is what initially attracted me to you.”

Initially? Pellaeon raises an eyebrow. “How long?”

Thrawn turns his head for a moment, then looks back to the captain, “I found you attractive from nearly the start. You’ve always awed me. You have never not impressed me.”

“You’ve been attracted to me this entire time? The last three years?” Pellaeon frowns. He hates to suggest it, but it has to be done. “Thrawn, did you do this on purpose?”

After a firm shake of his head in the negative, the grand admiral speaks again. His eyes are brighter in the dim light of the room and that coupled with the fierce look on his face goes right to Pellaeon’s dick. “No. Gilad, absolutely not. I would never force such a thing on anybody: especially not you. I had intended to wait until I had promoted you to a higher rank.”

“When was that going to be?” his voice is remarkably steady for how unsteady he feels. He wants to yell it at Thrawn, to snap at him, to do something besides lie here beneath him and glower with the beginning of an erection and a growing urge to kiss this infuriating asshole he’s stuck with for life. Pellaeon wants to be uncharitable and insist it’s a bad thing to be stuck with Thrawn like this, to act as though he wouldn’t have been at his side for the rest of his life regardless, but they both know otherwise.

They both know that the other’s sense of duty to the Empire is unfailing, that their loyalty to each other is, by this point, unshakeable, and that Thrawn could try to throw Pellaeon out of the service and he’d still find a way to be right there by his side. Pellaeon badly wants to hit him. Or kiss him. Pellaeon wants to punch his lips repeatedly with his own, but if he gives in to the urge to do so Thrawn gets out of answering the question and he’s not giving the man any room to retreat. 

“I still intend to promote you — ”

“That’s not what I asked.” Pellaeon cuts him off before he can continue the non-answer, even though hearing that Thrawn _still intends to promote him_ makes his stomach flip. Thrawn shouldn’t. Not for ages now, and they both know it. “Don’t dodge the question, don’t answer one I didn’t ask.”

Thrawn is looking at him like he’s never seen anyone look more fuckable in his life: he’ll remember that later, he’s sure, but for now he tries not to squirm and instead maintain the aura of irritation. “After Mrisst,” he answers, wetting his lips with his tongue. “I was going to promote you after Mrisst. I still intend to promote you after Mrisst, because you are a brilliant officer and I have held you back too long in my reluctance to risk letting you go.”

“You think I would willingly leave this ship?” Pellaeon responds, feeling stunned — and by more than one thing. Their plans for Mrisst have him taking a much larger leadership role than he has so far, and Thrawn has been minimally supervising his planning of their attack. “Or your side?”

“I think that you would do whatever we decided was best and necessary for the Empire,” Thrawn replies quietly, “as you always have.”

Pellaeon sighs because Thrawn is right. “I don’t have to leave your side. It will be more surprising to everyone if I do.” He lifts his hand to stroke over Thrawn’s arms without thinking about it. “We can play to expectations if we wish to stay together. Here.” Pellaeon realizes what his hands are doing when they reach Thrawn’s head. He cards his fingers through the man’s hair and watches his eyes close. “I would like to play to expectations, Thrawn.”

The grand admiral’s eyes open, and he studies the captain’s face in silence for a moment. When Pellaeon’s hands still on the back of his neck he speaks in a voice barely above a whisper. “I’m going to kiss you, Gilad.”

He’d better, because Pellaeon still wants to hit him — or kiss him — and one of the two needs to happen before someone manages to interrupt them again. “Get down here,” he murmurs, and uses the grip he has on Thrawn’s neck to pull him down so their lips meet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, did you think sex was happening? This is slow burn. This is excruciating torture because _somebody_ had to ask for slow-motherfucking-burn. They’re getting laid soon. It’s been like 13k words. I can’t cope. Will there be consequences? Maybe.
> 
> I have orientation for a new job tomorrow afternoon and then work horrific hours for training for the next two weeks because of course I do. Couple that with me and Shiv still working hard on Imperial Reformation and having a very limited amount of time together now and that means this is going to be slower coming out. Sorry. <3


	6. An Escalation: Part IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thrawn takes a moment to look at him, to touch him reverently with the fingertips of one hand before he moans quietly again and moves. One moment, he's straddling Thrawn's lap and being worshipped by gentle touches and a reverent gaze. In the moment that follows. Pellaeon finds himself on his back, head cushioned on Thrawn's pillows, with his fiancé crawling up his body.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 13k words is enough words to count as a slow burn, right? Enjoy your weird alien porn, nerds. I also went back and did some editing on the first 4 chapters. Chapter 5 didn’t really need it, IMO.

It has been nineteen hours since their first — and only — kiss. Thrawn’s lips had been just as warm and soft as when he’d kissed the captain’s hand. Pellaeon had been perfectly willing to allow him a second kiss, but the _Chimaera_ had been called to assist in a nasty battle shaping up against the rebellion in a nearby system and they’d been forced to make haste to the bridge in their dress uniforms. The battle had lasted nearly a full standard day, only ending when a boarding party from the _Relentless_ had taken the enemy commander’s corvette and pressed the issue at blaster point. The surrender had been much needed relief for everyone, but especially their exhausted crew.

Relief for their commanding officers doesn’t come until they are back in their separate quarters. Pellaeon wastes no time in removing his dress uniform. Every medal is placed back in its box and the uniform itself is sent to laundry. He throws himself under the spray of the shower, soaps up, and rinses off before his eyes can close under the warm water spray, or anybody can knock on his door. Drying himself doesn’t take long either: if his future husband decides to join him tonight, Pellaeon wants to be clean, dry, and dressed before that happens. He tugs on black sleeping pants and a gray t-shirt over his black boxer briefs. Both shirt and pants are faded and worn, with the odd hole here and there. The pants have been around since his academy days, and the shirt is nearly as ancient. They’re the most comfortable items of clothing he owns, as a result.

The door chime goes off as he’s turning down the bed. It’s not Thrawn, but his guards, extending him an invitation across the hall. Pellaeon doesn’t have to think about it: Thrawn’s bed is bigger, more comforter, and more of an actual bed than a bunk. He grabs his comlink and the code cylinder that opens his own quarters, and steps out into the hallway. He is ushered across the hall by his own guards. T’hama precedes him into the room while Annade waits outside, and if this is some stupid thing about checking his fiancé’s quarters for threats to him aboard his own damn ship Pellaeon is going to throw a fit. 

It is not. It seems to be habit for him: that one that Pellaeon has been reminded at least six times in the last two days he will have to go used to. 

Thrawn is waiting in the antechamber that doubles as a sitting room and art gallery. He looks nervous for a man confidently waiting in only sleep pants — only because Pellaeon knows what to look for — and the captain steps forward as the admiral stands. A hand is offered to him and Pellaeon takes it, ignoring how his guard tenses behind him at the touch of skin on skin. It might be time to have another talk with them about how he is _not_ Chiss. Pellaeon’s left hand is transferred from Thrawn’s right to his left, and the grand admiral rests his right hand on the small of his back to guide him to the bedroom. 

Both T’hama and one of Thrawn’s guards take a step forward to follow them, and Thrawn and Pellaeon stop mid-step. They exchange a glance and Thrawn nods at him. Pellaeon is allowed to boss the guards around, at least to a point. That could be fun. He turns his head only enough to look at them over his shoulder. “T’hama, Chi’lay, you’re not needed in here,” Pellaeon says in a voice that brooks no room for argument.

Thrawn’s tone of voice isn’t much kinder. His head turns to his guard that had dared to follow. “You will take first watch,” he says coldly, “ _out here_. We are not to be disturbed. He is not Chiss. You must all learn to be accommodating of other customs, whether or not you think them lesser.” 

The cold aloofness falls away the moment the bedroom door is shut and keyed to lock behind them. Pellaeon finds his back pressed against it and Thrawn’s lips on his. Being manhandled like that is so different from any of his other experiences with lovers that it immediately pulls a moan from him. Strong hands on his hips hold the Human where Thrawn wants him, and the grip tightens slightly — perfectly — at the sound Pellaeon makes. It’s just as well — Pellaeon has his hands in Thrawn’s hair to keep his lips on his. Breaking for air is a necessary evil: he doesn’t let either of them get more than a gasp in before he pulls Thrawn back, suddenly desperate for another kiss. 

His future husband is excellent at this activity, and has clearly chosen to use his powers of observation in conjunction with it. Quick to figure out what Pellaeon likes, it takes him no time to take the man apart with lips and tongue. Pellaeon is no slouch either, however, and when Thrawn starts drawing him back toward the bed he can feel the Chiss's cock half-hard against his belly. In the last few seconds before they move onto the bed Pellaeon realizes that his fiancé really likes it when he sucks on or nips his bottom lip.

Pellaeon does both when he pulls away, dragging his teeth with deliberate slowness over the lower lip, and Thrawn's cock twitches against him as the man gasps. The grand admiral sits on the bed and pulls the captain into his lap so that the Human is straddling him. Strong hands grip his hips tight enough that there is no worry of falling in his mind. Thrawn will hold him steady and safe. Thrawn will not let him fall. Their lips come back together for a moment as the shorter man rests his hands on the Chiss's bare shoulders. Pellaeon's lips stray after a moment. There is a lot of tempting skin to taste and only so much off-duty time afforded them.

He starts with Thrawn's jaw, placing kisses over it until he reaches the earlobe and can nibble it. A gasp escapes him as Thrawn's thumbs press into his hipbones again through his pants and begin rubbing light circles over the sensitive skin there. In retaliation he nips at the shell of his lover's ear, then begins mouthing down his neck. Halfway down he finds a spot that makes Thrawn swear and throw his head back. Pellaeon bites it to mark it, then teases the rest of his neck around it, never quite going back to that spot save to occasionally flick his tongue over it.

When Pellaeon finally bites it again, his future husband moans, and slides his hands under the Human's shirt to pull it off him and cast it aside. Thrawn takes a moment to look at him, to touch him reverently with the fingertips of one hand before he moans quietly again and moves. One moment, he's straddling Thrawn's lap and being worshipped by gentle touches and a reverent gaze. In the moment that follows. Pellaeon finds himself on his back, head cushioned on Thrawn's pillows, with his fiancé crawling up his body.

Thrawn claims a passionate kiss from him — it feels like he's being branded by someone's mark of ownership this time — then puts Pellaeon's hands in his hair before he gets to work on finding the most efficient method to completely devour him. Or he tries to. Putting the captain’s hands in his hair give Pellaeon the power to hold his mouth to the best spots, the ones that make him shiver and gasp, those places where Thrawn _bites_ without warning and he can feel the precum leaking from his cock in response, so of course Thrawn has to kiss his way back up his body. Pellaeon’s hands are pinned over his head with a quiet growl that makes his balls draw up and tighten a little more.

“I would like to finish undressing you. Is that okay?” Thrawn asks between laying a siege of kisses and sharp little bites to the shoulder he neglected last time.

“Yes,” he gasps.

Thrawn presses more firmly on his wrists. “These stay here,” he orders as he draws back to kneel between legs Pellaeon spreads easily for him. It takes the captain a minute to realize the command wasn’t given in Basic.

There is no teasing about removing either of their bottoms. Thrawn wants them off, and so they come off. At his age, the Human is past concerns about how he'll measure up, though he does lift his head for a better look at what he's gotten himself into for the very probable remainder of life. It's good. It's very good. Pellaeon doesn't think he'll have to lie back, close his eyes, and think of the Empire in order to do his duty to Thrawn as his husband. He’s never slept with another man before, but he’s always been curious about it. The galaxy picked well for him. Quite suddenly, he realizes his mouth and lips feel dry: Pellaeon swallows, then wets his lips with his tongue.

As badly as he wants the grand admiral back on top of him where he rightly belongs, the captain wants to pin him down so he can lick and touch every inch of that lean, muscled body.

‘Try before you buy,’ after all.

Thrawn must have similar thoughts, at least so far as skin contact is concerned. When his hungry eyes have looked their fill of him the Chiss stretches out on top of him again. Pellaeon hisses at the heat of him: Chiss are a few degrees warmer and his body feels like an electric blanket on top of him. His cock is incredibly hot against the Human's, which is not a complaint. It's different, but it's Thrawn's: it turns him on more as a result.

"Touch me," his fiancé requests, murmuring it against his lips.

Eager to obey, he rests his hands on Thrawn's shoulders for a moment, then slides them down his back as the other man moves his hips. The glide of their cocks together is enough to make him hiss out a curse in Old Corellian against Thrawn's lips. That his future husband laughs at it makes him feel more at ease and more aroused. So rarely does Pellaeon hear a genuine laugh from him, and knowing Thrawn is comfortable makes him comfortable.

“Agreed,” he breathes, smiling against Pellaeon’s collarbone. They rock against each other, eventually finding a movement and rhythm that works for both. Pellaeon is the first to finish, spilling between them with a quiet cry. Thrawn continues rutting against him through the mess until he has to acknowledge that it isn’t enough. The captain encourages him to get up and lie down on his back. He’ll make it better. He’ll take care of him. Oral on a man can’t be that difficult: Pellaeon is very familiar with being on the receiving end, and he know what he likes. It just takes being observant to one’s partner to be good at it, he thinks.

The white of his cum stands out brightly on the blue of Thrawn’s stomach. At his age he’s no longer shy about the taste of himself, having done quite a few strange things to please previous lovers. He can’t count the number of woman who have asked him to lick it back out of them after, or off of them. This is no different, to him. He lowers his mouth to his abdomen to lick up his mess, eyes on Thrawn, and then works his way lower. Surprise and arousal are clear on his face: he wasn’t expecting his lover to be willing to do that, at the very least, but he’s very much into it. Thrawn’s breath hitches when he works out what his fiancé is about to do.

“Gilad—” he starts, and that’s all he manages before Pellaeon gets his mouth over the head of his cock. 

The word he moans in Cheunh is a swear word that Thrawn had forbidden his guards to teach the captain, so of course the younger ones had taught it to him that very night. It doesn’t quite translate into Basic, but the word is incredibly naughty. Pellaeon pins his hips down with his hands, takes him further into his mouth, and flicks his tongue over the slit. That’s all it takes for Thrawn to come undone. Swallowing what he can is a daunting task: Chiss evidently produce more than human males do and he has to pull away and resort to stroking the grand admiral through the remainder of his orgasm to avoid choking. It makes a pretty mess on his abdomen, and the taste isn’t bad at all. Instead of being salty and bitter it’s a little on the sweet side, and somewhat savory: a bit like a spiced bread roll he’d had a lot in his youth. 

It would be unpardonably rude of him to make such a mess in his future husband’s quarters and not clean it up himself. Pellaeon makes eye contact with him as he lowers his head, first to his own hand to lick it clean, and then to the expanse of blue skin before him. His fiancé doesn’t seem to know what to do in response. The human smirks, pleased at having him trapped and speechless for once. Like this, Thrawn is at his mercy: speechless, helpless, fingers clenching restlessly in the sheets and his hair.

Once he’s been licked clean the captain kisses his way up to Thrawn’s lips, pausing here and there to tease. Of particular interest are his nipples, a darker blue than the rest of him. Experimentally, Pellaeon thumbs one, and grins when he gets a groan out of his lover. When he lowers his head to mouth over it, he’s shocked to find himself on his back with Thrawn’s thigh nudging at his testicles. 

“You are filthy,” Thrawn growls at him, mostly in Basic. Hot liquid is dripping onto Pellaeon’s stomach, and he looks down to see that his fiancé’s cock is still hard, and leaking pre-cum again. How he’s still erect Pellaeon can’t begin to imagine. He’s gone soft after his own orgasm: something about the look on Thrawn’s face suggests he will need to work on his own endurance to be able to properly satisfy him in their marriage bed. If Thrawn can go twice in a row, it will behoove him to be able to stay hard through the entire thing. 

Even as he shivers at the growl Thrawn’s teeth have found the spot just above the end of his collarbone. He isn’t at all gentle as he bites it, though he doesn’t draw blood, and Pellaeon cries out beneath him. The oversensitivity from his own orgasm has mostly subsided, but the rough touch still affects him, especially when Thrawn sucks a bruise over the spot he just bit. Pellaeon’s hands grip his hair — to hold him there or move him away, he can’t say — Thrawn reaches up to grip his wrists, twists a bit until the Human lets go, and pins both to his chest with a single hand. Thrawn also quickly turns his head to dodge a kiss, and ignores the way it makes Pellaeon whine.

“No,” he orders his lover, and Pellaeon gasps at being denied something. It’s oddly freeing, to have control stripped from him. "Keep them here for a moment." And before he can ask what he's expected to do (or not do) with them while he is at Thrawn’s mercy, the grand admiral is straddling his thighs. Once he's comfortable he moves the captain's hands. "You may only touch my thighs," he instructs. "Stray from that and I won't give you what you want."

Pellaeon nods his head, doesn't trust his voice, doesn’t ask what Thrawn thinks he wants. Something about the sudden change in behavior doesn’t sit right with him but the Human can’t pinpoint what it is. His plans to remain silent break on a moan when Thrawn gets right to showing him his own plans. One hand wraps around the still hard cock, but the other explores his own body. He isn't sure what, exactly, his future husband has planned, but there's a way to obey and still touch and tease. 

Thrawn said he could only touch his thighs so that's exactly what the captain does. He starts on the outside, and drags his palms down them so that his hands perfectly conform to the well formed muscles hidden under the smooth, hairless skin. Pellaeon wants to worship them with his mouth and leave bruises behind so Thrawn can see where his mouth had been for days afterward. What he really wants is to have that cock back in his mouth so he can take his fiancé apart again. The Chiss had fallen apart so quickly and completely for him. After he gets to know his body better, Pellaeon is sure he can make it great.

A quiet moan gets his attention focused on Thrawn's face. He's utterly lost in his own pleasure, stroking himself faster now and teasing his chest with nails. Pellaeon rakes his own nails up and then down the inside of Thrawn's spread legs — he's careful not to touch anything but his thighs, despite the temptation to do otherwise — and delights in the nearly silent whimper he gets in return for having the presence of mind to torment him. On their way back up his fingers glide over the skin. Thrawn moans his name, and he's cumming again.

Pellaeon watches, panting, as Thrawn cums across his chest and neck. "Beautiful," his fiancé murmurs when he finishes. Thrawn levers himself off the Human's legs and stretches out next to him. Feeling fingers sliding through the mess surprises him but he doesn't complain as the other male rubs it into his skin. With red cheeks, he turns to look at Thrawn.

Fascination is plain on his face as he rubs the fluid into Pellaeon's skin. When it wears off, he brings them to Pellaeon's lips. "Clean them, Gilad," he whispers, lips worshipping the human's shoulder.

Pellaeon obeys, driven by the strange and heated look in Thrawn's eyes. Without breaking eye contact he parts his lips and laps at the cum on his long fingers. The way his lover shivers prompts him to be bolder: he nips at the tip of his index finger before taking both into his mouth and sucking. Thrawn continues feeding it to him this way for a while, eyes glazed over a little from arousal. When the mess is cleaned up, Thrawn pulls him to his feet, guides Pellaeon into the refresher, and pulls him into the shower with him. They clean each other lazily under the spray of hot water, kissing shoulders and necks. 

But Thrawn refuses kiss his mouth again, even after he has properly rinsed it out. Every attempt at a kiss is dodged with no explanation. He is sent back to his own room to sleep, much to the apparent surprise of Thrawn’s guards. Pellaeon is confused too. If everything has gone well and they have both gotten off then why was he been sent back early? That makes little sense, and so does Thrawn’s sudden refusal to kiss him. He’s fucked up something, it’s the only thing that made sense. Deciding to leave it for the morning, Pellaeon turns in. For the first night since this mess began, he falls into an uneasy sleep without guards outside his door as well, having been sent back too soon for them to be summoned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so damn long. I waffled a lot on whether or not this was too weird a hang up for the Chiss. But this _is_ crack treated seriously soooo... fuck it! *shrug* I also wrote chapter 7 side-by-side with this, so that took me forever too. Space gays and their emotions. I’ll tell you what, these boys need to get their shit together. Smdh.


	7. A Ceasefire, and a Surrender

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pellaeon turns his head back to look at his future husband with a frustrated glare. "I wasn't the only person in your bed having sex last night: you were there too. Communicating takes two people at a minimum, Thrawn."

After a night of poor sleep and the knowledge that something has gone wrong with the consummation of their engagement, Pellaeon pries himself out of bed early the next morning. He’s gone through the urgent messages that have come through overnight — somehow, Moff Enaid has managed to get a message off-ship, and that needs addressed quickly — when the door chime goes off. Dread settles in his stomach like lead sinking in a glass of water: he’s not ready to discuss this with Thrawn. While Pellaeon is aware that he had done something his lover hadn’t liked, he has no idea what it was. Thrawn had responded well to all of it, got off on all of it, and then refused to kiss him at all after he had—

The oral. Was it that?

Reluctantly, he rises to answer the door. His guards are back in place and Pellaeon relaxes a little despite himself. If he’s still being protected then Thrawn hasn’t decided to offend everyone and call off the whole thing. There’s still a chance to fix it.

Part of him wants it to be Thrawn, though he doesn’t realize it until he’s registered that there’s no sign of his fiancé. It’s only T’hama and Annade. Of course it isn’t Thrawn. He has things to do this morning, and Pellaeon had screwed up enough that he had not even earned a kiss goodnight. Thrawn wouldn’t rearrange hostage negations with the Moffs to comfort him and discuss this. 

“May I come in?” T’hama asks, his voice quiet. His eyes sweep over the Human, evaluating, and eventually come to rest on his face as he takes in his current emotional state. ‘Enervated’ is how Pellaeon would put it: he doesn’t know what the equivalent would be in Cheunh. 

A quiet sigh escapes him as he steps aside to let the bodyguard into his quarters. The other man stays nearby as he goes about getting ready, a silently reassuring, unobtrusive presence that keeps Pellaeon company. It goes well for a while, but as all Humans do in the shower, Pellaeon lets his mind wander. The path it takes is one he’d prefer it not go down, and by the time he steps back out a few minutes later he’s convinced Thrawn will be looking for a way out of this altogether. T’hama respectfully keeps his eyes averted as Pellaeon showers and wraps himself in a bathrobe. He doesn’t step in to stop him from doing anything until his charge’s hands are shaking too much for him to shave. 

“Captain,” he calls calmly, to distract Pellaeon, and plucks the razor away when it is clear of his face. “Would it put you more at ease if we spoke?”

“Perhaps,” he hears himself say. T’hama steers him out of the refresher and to his bunk where he’s urged to sit down. The tall guard crouches in front of him to see his face.

“Annade and I were apprised of the situation this morning.” The careful tone is of no comfort to Pellaeon, who prefers no one else ever knows what happened last night. Any mistakes he makes with his future husband ought to be completely private and between them — apparently Thrawn disagrees. His hands curl into fists next to his thighs. “So that we could help you understand, and help him understand,” T’hama quickly adds when he glances down.

Pellaeon sighs. Intermediaries. Thrawn is in early meetings, so he’s using Pellaeon’s guards as intermediaries and surveillance since can’t — or won’t — discuss this himself. “This cultural secrecy is a problem. I’m being made to marry him. I need to know what I can’t do before I accidentally do it. Whatever ‘it’ is.”

The other male nods his head. “We have all warned him as much. Last night he found out the hard way that we were correct and he cannot wait until your marriage or later to teach you what you’re getting into.” There’s a small scowl playing about T’hama’s lips that Pellaeon would usually find charming: he doesn’t react to it now. “I think he was mostly surprised by it: human sexual practices are not something he has studied as much as others of his household.”

“It’s not some sort of a novelty—”

“It _is_ to us,” T’hama argues quietly, crimson eyes flashing with passion. “Chiss do not engage in such practices. Putting one’s lover’s _tan’er_ in one’s mouth is a dirty act and not sexually fulfilling — to us.”

Pellaeon doesn't recognize the word. He has an inkling of what T’hama is talking about, but Thrawn and the rest of the Chiss have caused him enough trouble that he's going to make all of them spell everything out in detail for a good long while. “One’s what?” he asks, his face the picture of innocence. 

T’hama blinks at him, mouth falling open slightly. “I don’t know the word in Basic.”

“Try another one in Cheunh. It helps to build my vocabulary,” he suggests, looking and sounding as virtuous and wholesome as a young child. T’hama falls for it completely. Pellaeon is certain he should feel guilty, but can't summon up any separate guilt for this man. Every bit of it he has right now seems to be reserved for whatever he had done to Thrawn last night that caused him to kick the captain out.

“Okay,” T’hama agrees, thinking hard. “ _Tin’si? Rokuv?_ ” Pellaeon shakes his head. They're the words for _spear_ and _throttle_ respectively, but he isn’t going to give an inch on this: he is going to be a pain about it. The Chiss sighs, and continues. “ _Csecun? Esecah? Vuvkiban’i? Vuv?_ ”

“Oh,” Pellaeon says flatly. “Penis.” 

The guard gives him a suspicious look though he says nothing. "It is the same rules for one’s,” he pauses, trying to think of the word, mouthing through a few before giving up and hoping Pellaeon knows it, “ _k’toim_.”

The captain thinks about that one for a few seconds, almost tripped up by the term. “Fluids?” he guesses, then realizes what he really meant. “Oh. Semen.” His cheeks flush. “The proper term in Basic is ‘semen,’ T’hama.”

“Semen,” he says carefully, trying the word, and nods. “Thank you. One does not taste or swallow that.”

His chest aches at the thought of never being able to give oral again; however, if it’s a genuine limit, he’ll respect it. Thrawn’s refusal to kiss him had hurt more than he had gained pleasure from the act. Being kicked out to sleep alone for his ignorance had hurt far more than the rejection of his kisses. “Okay,” Pellaeon agrees quietly, trying not to look crestfallen.

T’hama isn’t fooled by his attempts to hide how he feels. “Do not sulk," he scolds gently. “Using one’s mouth in such a way: It’s normal for your species, isn’t it?”

“It is,” he confirms, not looking at him. The deck in his quarters needs scrubbed — Pellaeon can’t remember the last time it happened and makes a note to check for that in all crew quarters when he does his formal inspection of the ship. “For most of us, anyway. Humans have varied preferences, but for the most part we use as much of our bodies as possible to give and receive pleasure.

“For Corellians — for most Humans — if our partners genuinely can’t stand something, we go without that, even if it is our favorite activity to do in bed." Giving oral was _his_ favorite thing to do in bed, but _if_ Thrawn ever decides to touch him again Pellaeon knows he will have to learn to enjoy something else to the same degree.

They hadn’t even really discussed anything first. Pellaeon realizes now that it was expected of him to let Thrawn take the lead and he follow it completely. Is it going to be that way every time?

He sighs. This is damn disheartening, somewhat confusing, and he's going to be late getting to the bridge. "How do I make amends?"

T’hama rests a gloved hand on his robe-clad shoulder. “Get dressed, and I will teach you.”

* * *

It’s a rough morning: rarely does an overhaul of one system cause another to fail completely, but it seems to be Engineering's day for problems as well. He keeps himself out of that mess: his Engineering Chief is a competent man, his staff is well trained, and none of them need micromanaged by their captain. They do a remarkably excellent job of keeping him in the loop regardless. Pellaeon certainly isn’t wanting for anything to do this morning to keep his mind off Thrawn. He has his hands full with campaign preparations, morning and weekly meetings, and has had to do all of it on an empty stomach and with no caf. Experience keeps a lid on his temper and his fraying nerves from making an appearance.

That changes the moment he becomes aware of the grand admiral's presence on the bridge. Annade moves protectively to put himself between Pellaeon and the perceived threat — even if it's only by taking a single step to turn and face Thrawn on the walkway above the crewpit — as T'hama approaches him. The captain watches the brief, public exchange from the corner of his eye as his fiancé leaves one of his guards with Annade and steps away with T'hama. It will either end well or it won't, he figures, but the damn comm display won't unlock without override codes and a severe beating so he puts it out of his mind. The next time they're scheduled to have any work done on bridge consoles or the ship's comms, that damn thing is being replaced.

He ends up putting in a work order for it himself half an hour later when it fails within minutes of getting it working. The bridge has a backup comm station but he doesn't like running on backups. Knowing he'll get an earful from the Engineering Chief he still marks it as a priority. Pellaeon will let the man vent if he needs to before making him do it himself, but it has to be done, and quickly. 

Annade informs him as he's signing and logging the work order that his future husband has sent orders for them to bring Pellaeon to his quarters, effective immediately. That the orders are relayed in Cheunh is a relief: his first officer is hovering nearby. He's not the only officer aboard that has been worried about the captain, the grand admiral, and the arrangement, but he's one of a handful Pellaeon will let get away with hovering over him like his guards. That doesn’t mean he wants the man knowing every little detail. His response to Annade is also in Cheunh, " _Cssah na_.” 

It's one of the few things he can pronounce and he takes pleasure in doing so just to see their noses wrinkle a little at the stubborn Corellian insisting on using their language when he can.

Pellaeon turns over the conn, and lets himself be whisked away with butterflies and nausea growing rapidly in his stomach. Once they exit the turbolift every step makes him want to vomit: he can feel the bile trying to rise up his esophagus and has to keep swallowing it back down. His own footsteps remind him of the ticking sounds of ancient clocks, where every _tick_ of a gear is another second toward the inevitable. Coming to a halt outside the grand admiral’s private suite feels like a temporary stay of the executioner’s hand. When he is admitted, it is without Annade. Pellaeon is alone to face his mistake.

Thrawn is in the antechamber for once, unprotected save for the guards outside his door and the captain’s, and motions for Pellaeon to join him on the small couch. Hesitantly, he does so, but keeps his distance. T’hama had specified after Pellaeon was dressed that, were they on Csilla, he would be considered little better than a whore, and certainly not worthy of the touch of a nobleman. He also mentioned that he had no idea what way Thrawn was leaning on this issue, and it was best to be cautious. 

The grand admiral is clearly working, and doesn’t set down the datapad he’s working on even after the captain is seated on the opposite end of the couch, hands folded in his lap, head down and eyes averted. It should be the perfect picture of humility, according to T’hama, and according to what the guards said on the way up. If it doesn’t work, if Thrawn still doesn’t acknowledge him after several minutes, T’hama had said it might be necessary to sink to both of his knees approximately one-third of a meter in front of Thrawn and one-third of a meter to his side, but that Chiss frowned upon lowering oneself more than necessary to apologize. 

Annoyed after more than those several minutes have come and gone, because he isn’t the only one at fault here, because he has a plethora of other things to do, and because in order to get past this he is going to have to make the first move, Pellaeon braces himself for the humiliation of it, and prepares to slide himself off the sofa to his knees at Thrawn’s feet. His hands clench into fists in the moment before he does it, the leather creaking and that seems to snap Thrawn out of whatever he is doing as the Human moves.

"There's no need for that." His gloved hands rests in the center of the captain's chest. "Gilad, do not debase yourself any further." Thrawn stands, reaches out for his lover's hands and pulls him to his feet as well. "Come, let us go discuss this elsewhere."

The whole thing just makes Pellaeon a little angry. Thrawn waited until he was ready to completely debase himself to truly acknowledge his presence, wasting both their time.

Thrawn leads him to the captain’s bed. Pellaeon doesn’t miss the fact that it puts him immediately more at ease and almost makes him lower his guard. His years with Thrawn have taught him an awful lot of things, and opened his eyes to many things to watch out for: Thrawn putting him in a place where the captain will be more comfortable than him is one of those things. It has traditionally meant he is not going to like anything that is about to come out of the grand admiral’s mouth and the other male knows it: this is an attempt to stop an argument before it starts. 

"Do not be angry with T'hama," Thrawn begins as he takes one knee in front of Pellaeon. This position has cultural significance but right now the captain can't remember what it is: he's too busy being surprised at the implication he would be angry with his guard. When Thrawn reaches for his hands again Pellaeon willingly lets his fiancé take them.

"Why would I be angry with him when he helped me this morning?"

The back of each gloved hand is brought to Thrawn's mouth for a kiss. Reminded of his fears that their physical intimacy is done far, that his future husband will now deny him _all_ skin contact but what is necessary for Thrawn’s pleasure for the remainder of this relationship, Pellaeon has to look away. It's no less than either of them deserve for their failure to communicate, he supposes, to be deprived of each other for not discussing boundaries first.

"T'hama shared the details of your conversation with me."

"Was that not the intention in telling him and Annade what happened last night?" Pellaeon's voice isn't steady by any definition of the word, but it doesn't do anything embarrassing like crack or fail completely. "So that one of them could talk to me and pass the information on to you since you had such a busy morning?"

Thrawn flinches — it's barely noticeable even at this close distance, but Pellaeon sees it from the corner of his eye — and sighs almost inaudibly. "Neither of us is a morning person, but you would need someone to talk with who could understand and explain the Chiss perspective."

The Human raises an eyebrow. "I would think my future husband capable enough of that. Should I arrange for you to have a sit-down with a couple of stormtroopers so you can properly appreciate the Human perspective?"

A pout turns down the corners of Thrawn's lips. "Gots'om'cheis said the same thing earlier."

"Then maybe you should give the idea consideration." Pellaeon turns his head back to look at his future husband with a frustrated glare. "I wasn't the only person in your bed having sex last night: you were there too. Communicating takes two people at a minimum, Thrawn."

"You put it in your mouth, Gilad!" Thrawn replies, looking both intrigued and scandalized. The expression reminds Pellaeon of a time when he had caught a particularly young group of ensigns and lieutenants watching some bizarre reality show about real sex acts in the Officers' Lounge.

Pellaeon stares at him for a second, and then shrugs as an idea comes to him on how to present his reasons for it. “Of course I did. What else was I going to do with it at that point?”

Thrawn is already off-guard: pressing the point makes him go still and quiet. “I don’t understand.”

“I hadn’t prepared myself for penetration, and there was no indication that you intended to take me last night. You were still hard. To Humans, a handjob is something you can do, sure, but it’s mediocre at best, and certainly not the nicest thing one can do for a lover. I brushed my teeth, and I trust you to keep your cock clean. It’s naughty, certainly, but I enjoy giving oral to my partners.” He shifts his weight on the bed and looks away from Thrawn, who releases his hands and stands to pace over to the viewport. Pellaeon wraps his arms around himself, feeling cold now that Thrawn has wandered off, looking shocked at the words his lover is saying. “Though I’m told you will likely never touch me or kiss me again now due to my ignorance. How am I to know what is off-limits if you never tell me?”

There is silence between them. Pellaeon is sure T’hama has also told him that the Human will willingly give it up for him. He watches Thrawn from the corner of his eye: there is no movement at all as he gazes out at the swirling blue lines of hyperspace. 

Of the two of them, Pellaeon has always been worse with tactics (Thrawn is the strategic genius, after all). Clearly he has chosen the wrong one for the situation. Out of ideas, desperate to fix this, to have one ally in his marriage, Pellaeon know there’s really one choice left: surrender. Admit defeat, and give up. It’s not ideal, but Thrawn’s posture is identical to the one he takes when his mind cannot be changed. What choice does he have? He swallows to work moisture back into his mouth, then wets his lips with his tongue. 

“I’m being an ass. It’s not necessary to me, to do that during sex,” he adds quietly as he slides off the bed and to his knees in the humiliating, submissive posture T’hama had taught him that morning. “As much as I love it, I’m fine with giving it up. And I realize that I should have asked your permission. I’m sorry: please, tell me how to make it right.”

He feels Thrawn tense — he can’t see it with his eyes on the floor, but the captain knows his commander’s moods — and then he hears Thrawn swear under his breath, turn on his heal, and stalk past him toward the door. Pellaeon’s eyes slide shut and his shoulders slump in defeat. This is it then. One stupid mistake and he’s doomed them to a miserable, sexless, marriage. Even being able to say he tried to fix it holds no comfort. He hears Thrawn leave, but it’s still some time before he can pull himself — trembling — off the floor and onto the edge of his bed. 

As he pulls off his cap and runs a hand through his hair, it strikes him that sitting on his bed alone feels wrong. There’s a proper sitting area in the other room and if he could just get himself to stand up and walk to it —

The door to the main room opens, and Pellaeon finds himself privately hoping for an assassination attempt. It isn’t though. It’s Thrawn’s voice. “—to my comlink,” he’s saying. Pellaeon hears the _beep_ of the door pad and the rhythm of Thrawn’s override code being put in. After three years of hearing it, it’s become familiar. “The captain is not to be disturbed.” Tschel’s voice acknowledges and signs off, and Thrawn’s footsteps approach the bedroom portion of his quarters. Pellaeon lifts his head to watch as the grand admiral uses his override code on that door as well, then turns and stalks over to the bed. 

Thrawn’s belt has gone missing and his tunic is partially open. There’s a determined look in his eyes as he finishes unfastening the tunic and drops it to the floor. Pellaeon looks up at him, nervous, confused, but Thrawn clears all of that up as he removes his gloves and drops them on top of his tunic. 

“Show me, again, that thing you did with your mouth.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Cssah na_ = Very well
> 
> Regarding Gots'om'cheis: I really wanted fondue or nachos or something one night. Named this poor bastard (the one with the “unpronounceable name”) after my still-unsatisfied melty cheese craving. Hahaha. I need a third job. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter.


	8. A Counterattack, Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “We can teach you a different one,” T’hama grins. It makes him look far more boyish than it has any right to, but that spark of mischief in his eye likely has had something to do with it.
> 
> Annade brightens up and leans in. These two are trouble when in the mood to make it of themselves. “Or a short phrase. Chiss love — I believe it’s called ‘dirty talk’ in Basic — so you might have heard quite a few Chiss words you don’t know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y’all kept requesting more of the guards. So this is half-sex, half-Annade-and-T’hama-teaching-naughty-slang. If by “guards” you meant “Rukh,” go read [Do You Remember Kuat?](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13681671)

Everything has mostly been going well, Pellaeon reflects as he's reviewing budget reports from his section chiefs. Miracle of miracles: they'd all produced the proper end-of-year datawork on time. But now he has to reconcile that into one report for the entire ship. Then, as the leader of a task force, he gets to make sure all of their work is fine.

And then, because he's Thrawn's second-in-command, he has the dubious honor of assisting in reviewing the other reports.

There’s also this odd matter of a transmission Moff Enaid has managed to send out. He’s put Intelligence on it but so far they’ve run up against nothing but dead ends as to what it is, when he actually managed to transmit it, the message’s contents, and to whom it was sent. Part of him wants to pass it up to Thrawn so he can authorize an interrogation. The rest of him thinks they should give Intelligence another twelve hours to dig.

He's been awake since 0400 and it's now 0100. 

The door to his office opens and he looks up, expecting to see Annade coming to bother him about his sleeping habits yet again when he has already explained the very real, looming deadlines four times. It isn't either of the guards: they've clearly decided to appeal to the highest possible authority aside from the ship's absolutely terrifying CMO. One of them has clearly gone and woken his future husband: both of them will catch hell from Pellaeon for that. Thrawn has had an exhausting week of twelve to eighteen hour workdays. Four days have involved actual face-to-face meetings with sector Moffs, planetary governors, or military officers. As Thrawn's second-in-command and his presumed heir, Pellaeon is required to attend such meetings with his fiancé. 

He’s sure he doesn’t have nearly as much administrative work to do upon their return from these daylong excursions as his lover does. 

At least, he is until his subordinates begin to turn in the proper forms: he and his aides are overworked. He’s sent the last of them to bed a short while ago, despite their protests that they can still help and the captain needs sleep more than any of them.

Thrawn's sigh is quiet as he stands in the doorway just looking at Pellaeon for a moment. Just watching him, spending a few minutes or a stolen moment to watch the captain is a new hobby of Thrawn's, and he engages in it whenever he thinks that his lover isn't watching. Rarely, like now, he'll blatantly do it while Pellaeon is aware.

This time he doesn't linger long, only takes his fiancé's presence in, catalogues his current state, and approaches the desk.

Almost always, he takes a seat. Every time he’s let himself in in the past, he has respected his subordinate and remained on the other side of the desk. Tonight, Pellaeon is given a grouchy look by a Chiss with bed head and what looks like a bad attitude as he comes around behind the desk. 

"Save your progress, shut down your terminal, and come with me, Gilad." There's enough of a threat behind the growled out words that Pellaeon hesitates slightly before testing Thrawn’s patience. 

"I'm nearly finished with this set," he protests, and doesn't move to obey. He understands how the aide felt, he thinks, being bullied into turning in by a superior officer who looks far more tired than he feels. 

Thrawn isn't having it. "I don't want to make it an order. I want to be asleep. Come to bed." He looks incredibly put-out, and it is rapidly changing to anger. When Pellaeon is slower to move than his fiancé would like, Thrawn does it for him, sliding his chair back, saving his work, shutting down the terminal, and pulling his subordinate to his feet despite the protests.

“I don’t give a damn,” he grumbles, “I’ll discipline you for insubordination if you don’t shut up and come to bed right now.”

They’ve yet to even share a bed through the night yet, despite how Thrawn makes it sound. Pellaeon knows not to argue, not against the threat of formal disciplinary action, though he’s not sure it should be used here. What choice does he have, however, if Grand Admiral Thrawn is making it an order?

A hand on the back of his neck steers him to the turbolift, and then right to Thrawn’s quarters. The trip there is silent: Thrawn tired and annoyed, Pellaeon stunned by his behavior and too familiar with his moods to dare to speak. Their guards are quiet as well, exchange confused glances. 

The step through the door, and Pellaeon hears Annade makes a surprised noise as the door shuts behind him and Thrawn, leaving their four guards out in the hall. There are two more guards inside, and they jump to attention from the sofa. Pellaeon devotes half a thought to wondering if they know how many times Thrawn has blown him on that in the last week, and vice-versa: the rest of his attention is devoted to deciphering the orders Thrawn is giving out in Cheunh.

“ _Have one of his guards bring him a fresh change of clothing and his toiletries for the morning. He will be staying for the night._ ”

Neither guard argues: one look at Thrawn’s face deters them from that. Pellaeon is swiftly maneuvered into the bedroom and efficiently stripped: he doesn’t dare protest, nor does he want to. Getting his uniform off of him in a hurry is something else his fiancé has gotten quite good at. It takes him less than ninety seconds to get the Human completely bare, some amount less than that for him to strip, and he tumbles Pellaeon into the bed with him.

*

He wakes from a dead sleep to a mouth kissing over his bare shoulder. Occasionally, it stops to gently nip at the skin, or lap at a spot that makes him shiver. There’s a hand trailing teasing fingers over his torso, and a very familiar erection at his back. “What time is it?” he mumbles, concerned with making sure they can finish what Thrawn is starting.

“Just after 0630.” Thrawn’s accent is thick at this hour, voice rough from sleep, but decipherable. His hands and lips grow more bold now that he knows his future husband is awake. There’s a spot on the back of Pellaeon’s neck that, when bitten, makes him swear aloud and nearly quiver with want. Thrawn had found it a few days ago. Now he marks it with a love bite and has his lover squirming and gasping in his arms in mere moments. 

Pellaeon tries to pull away. He has early staff meetings. They don’t have time— “I’ve canceled your early meetings,” Thrawn informs him, nibbling at his scapula as his hand moves lower to rearrange Pellaeon’s legs. “They’ll send you a summary report and come to you in person as is appropriate. Use the free time to complete the EOY work, Gilad.”

The sound of a tube uncapping distracts him from the argument on his lips; instead, he reaches back and tangles a hand in Thrawn’s hair to try to drag his mouth back to that last spot. “Thank you,” he says after a moment, both for the ungodly skillful things that mouth can do to a man, and for the rearranging of his schedule. “Though I’m sure you had no other motivations.”

A chuckle against his skin makes him shiver: it’s delightful in its impishness. “I may have had some other motivation, yes.” As if to prove his point, a lube slicked hand reaches down and parts his ass cheeks: for the first time, Pellaeon feels his thick cockhead brush against his hole. He gasps and tenses at the sensation, then eventually relaxes when no attempt to breach him is made. The only other thing that happens is that his slick hand reaches for Pellaeon’s cock. 

“Is this okay?” Thrawn asks after the fact, moving his hips so that Pellaeon can feel the glide of his entire length between his cheeks as he strokes his cock.

A long, low moan is his answer. He had no idea that the nerve-endings along the outside would be this sensitive. “Don’t stop,” he manages once he decides it’s more than fine. 

Thrawn moans, low and throaty, in his ear at the demand and gets to work taking them both apart. His cock is a nice size and shape — only a little bigger than the average Human’s — and nothing to be afraid of. But like this, it feels pretty big. Pellaeon is suddenly aware that he’s probably going to need more than a few nights alone with his fingers (and perhaps he should find a way to procure a toy to assist him?) in order to be even slightly prepared to be penetrated by his fiancé. It’s already been explained to him by Thrawn’s cadre of guards that there is no way he will be permitted to take Thrawn, as the lower ranking person in the relationship, so there’s not a workable way around it. One day, he’s been assured — probably any day now — Thrawn will bring up the subject, and Pellaeon will see for himself that he must adapt to the idea.

Pellaeon is almost okay with that. Feeling the heat of it, and the precum leaking from his lover’s cock onto his body to help ease the way is especially helpful in pushing him toward being almost okay with it. He lets Thrawn slowly fuck him like this, alternating between stroking him off and rolling Pellaeon’s balls in his hand. 

“You feel amazing like this, Gilad. Like you were made for my cock,” Thrawn murmurs into his ear, in a voice thick with want, and made rough by sleep and physical exertion. The accent isn’t toned down at all. It’s _Thrawn,_ not the grand admiral, not the mask of the political imperial, and getting to have the person behind the mask makes it so much hotter. No one else gets to see this side of him.

He rewards his lover by moaning for him and tilting his neck to expose more of it. The submissiveness of the gesture is understood for what it is, and Thrawn lets out a groan that sounds greedier than any words Pellaeon has ever heard come out of the mouths of the Moffs. Lips and tongue go right for the newly available skin: teeth too, only on the places that aren’t going to be visible over the collar of his uniform tunic. He idly wonders if he ought to thank Annade for teaching him that.

In between tasting him and biting him, Thrawn continues to talk to him. “I would like to take you one day,” he says, and Pellaeon whimpers: they were right. “Should I save that to consummate our marriage?”

“It’s certainly an idea,” Pellaeon manages, trembling against him. The slide of his cock is clearly meant to mimic what Thrawn truly wishes to do to him. 

“You’ve never had anything inside you, have you, Gilad?” The way Thrawn asks it makes it clear that he would very much like to be the one to change that. When his reaction to Pellaeon’s stuttered ‘no’ is a soft chuckle against the shell of the Human’s ear and a slower glide of his hips — calculated, Pellaeon thinks, to make his cockhead catch on the rim of his hole — Pellaeon can’t help the keening moan that escapes him.

Thrawn’s hips snap forward involuntarily at the sound and he moans against the side of Pellaeon’s head. “I have an idea, if you’re willing,” he pants, rocking his hips a little harder as he works them both more toward orgasm. “I won’t force my way into you, but I would desperately like to cum inside you.”

“Why?” he asks, only out of curiosity. It’s not like Thrawn can impregnate him: it seems pointless and messy.

“You are my _k’ein’s._ Even if we are both men it is expected that I will still attempt to breed you. It is also a way for me to mark you with my scent, another way to mark you as _mine_.” The word is punctuated with a bite that makes him shiver. “Let me do it, _ch’acico,_ please. Let me breed you, _‘k’ta nahtehe’oten’i’_.” 

That sentence does things for him that it shouldn’t do. It makes him compliant and needy when Thrawn removes his hand from his cock to part his cheeks again. It makes him obedient when Thrawn rolls him to his stomach after a soft kiss to his cheek. It makes him more intrigued than afraid when both of Thrawn’s hands are on his backside kneading the muscles as his cock glides smoothly between them. Sometimes, he pauses to rub the head of his leaking cock in gentle circles over Pellaeon’s hole until the Human is pleading for him to do something else. That “something else” turns out to be Thrawn using his fingers to spread the entrance to his body wide open as he grinds down hard against him.

Pellaeon swears at him, and Thrawn laughs quietly. “Do you want me to fill you up, _ch’ah vosihn Susattein_?”

“Yes,” he answers. His own voice is so altered out of want that he barely recognizes it. “Please, Thrawn. Cum inside me.”

Thrawn is happy to oblige. A touch to the small of Pellaeon’s back indicates he should remain still, and he does. Then he feels two thumbs pulling at his hole, and looks back over his shoulder in time to see Thrawn smirk at him. He presses the head of his cock to it and leans forward slightly as his orgasm hits. Not all of it makes it in: his cock twitches slightly and some of it hits his ass.

Pellaeon is trembling. He has no idea what he’s supposed to do now, is desperate to cum as well, and this will, apparently, become a regular thing. Is he grateful for that? His hands clench in the sheets and he wants to ask what to do, but instinct holds him back. Thrawn planned this. Thrawn has made it abundantly clear since their first misadventure in bed that he expects to take the lead in their sex life, and Pellaeon is to follow suit whenever he is willing and able to do so: and only then. 

Waiting for instructions is so damn difficult when all he can think about is cumming though. Impatiently, he shifts his hips to remind Thrawn about _his_ issue and receives a gentle, admonishing tap on the behind for it. 

“Do you mind if I try something else new tonight?” his lover asks after a moment.

“What is it?” Pellaeon asks as he tries to maintain self-control. It’s a battle he’s losing, and quickly. 

“I wish to put something inside you, but nothing much bigger than my finger. Only to clean you up. Should you become uncomfortable, tell me to stop and I will.”

Hell, might as well get to know what it should feel like before he tries it alone. “Okay, just,” he clenches and unclenches his fists, “get on with it.”

Good, old-fashioned, Corellian curiosity holds him in place: he fails to see how putting anything inside him will help clean him up. Then Thrawn begins to gather the mess off his cheek and push it back inside him with a finger, telling Gilad to be good for him and hold it all in there. At first he can only take the tip of the finger. By the time Thrawn gets to the last of it, he has the whole finger inside Pellaeon. All he does as he licks his cheek to get all of it off him it gently wiggle the finger inside the captain. 

The motion turns him into more of a panting, begging mess than he thought possible. Thrawn chuckles, and shows his lover no mercy. He licks around his finger instead to tease the sensitive skin, then laps at any fluid that leaks out when he switches to fucking Pellaeon with the digit. 

All Pellaeon can do is cling to the bed and let a symphony of praise and moans fall from his lips. 

Thrawn pulls away when he’s right on the edge, and he almost sobs. “Shh,” he soothes. “I’m only changing my position.”

Thrawn is back in a moment, with twice as much enthusiasm, though it’s his tongue with which he chooses to bombard the Human’s nerves, and not his finger. Pellaeon gasps, then moans quite a bit louder than he intended. He hopes Thrawn has instructed the guards to stay out. It isn’t his intention to be so loud as to bring them into the room, but right now he doesn’t give a damn what they see, so long as Thrawn doesn’t stop eating his ass until he finishes. Two of Thrawn’s hands spread his cheeks, giving him better access, and the tip of his tongue dips in.

Wound up and beyond a care, that does it for Pellaeon. He cums with a hoarse shout of Thrawn’s name, spilling across his lover’s sheets.

*

Neither of them are noticeably late to attend to their duties, despite a longer conversation about working Pellaeon up to taking his cock that leaves both of them blushing and aching for more than they have time for. Caf and breakfast are waiting when they step into the sitting room. T’hama is on duty this morning, and Pellaeon beams at him. He returns the smile, but glowers at Thrawn slightly. Some of the Chiss are still learning to adjust to their budding sexual relationship, and some have yet to fully forgive Thrawn for the initial slight of throwing Pellaeon out the night they consummated their engagement. T’hama — and Annade, perhaps by default — has both feet firmly planted in the second camp.

They make their way to the bridge together, Pellaeon on Thrawn’s elbow in the turbolift, reluctant to part when it stops. A certain degree of professionalism must be maintained: a quick, chaste kiss is shared, and they part. But there is heat in Thrawn’s eyes that makes Pellaeon bite his bottom lip for a moment before he forces professionalism on as a mask. 

Whatever Thrawn had started this morning isn’t over. It will be continued later: possibly this very evening.

The morning goes smoothly, as does lunch. Nothing unusual happens, aside from everyone relevant being preoccupied with EOY datawork. He’s in the middle of a conversation with the Chimaera’s senior bridge officers regarding that and a few budgetary matters when the first sign that anything is wrong at all occurs.

Everything on the bridge starts tilting sideways: except it isn’t. It can’t be, Pellaeon realizes after a moment, because nothing is sliding. There are no sounds of anything rolling, no signs of distress on anyone’s faces. Lieutenant Commander Tschel looks somewhat concerned, and when he asks Pellaeon if he’s all right, everything snaps back to normal. It’s as though nothing at all happened. Confused, but pleased to find everything put to rights again, Pellaeon smiles and assures him that he’s quite fine.

*

The second sign that anything is wrong comes when he’s having a friendly drink in the Officer’s Lounge with the senior staff to celebrate _their_ EOY work being done. The _Chimaera’s_ financial datawork is finished. Of course, it has to pass the scrutiny of the grand admiral and several others, but their part is done. Pellaeon still has a lot to do, but his people can go back to their actual jobs. It should be a relief. The most tedious portion of the work is finished, yet his heart feels like it’s hammering in his chest for no reason once they’ve made all toasts they can think to make.

That and the earlier episode are enough to alarm him: he signals his guards for a discreet extraction. A reason to leave is faked, he bids his officers farewell, and the moment they are alone in the turbolift Annade hits the button to stop the car and punches in an override code to keep maintenance from moving them.

“What is wrong?” demands the smaller man — mercifully in Basic — staring up at him with a scowl that combines worry and frustration in a way that isn’t entirely unlike the way his mother had looked at him when he’d broken an arm climbing a tree when he was eight years old. “You look like you’re burning up!” 

“Take me to medical,” Pellaeon orders gently, calmly, despite his racing heart and the world tilting. “Do it quietly. Do not inform Thrawn or the other guards. Just do it, and do it now.”

Annade looks offended, but T’hama reaches around him to restart the turbolift and reset the destination. “Syndic Mitth’raw’nuruodo will have our heads if we do not tell him.”

“The computer can find us for him in an emergency,” T’hama reminds him peacefully as the whirling sound of the turbolift in motion soothes Pellaeon. He leans against the wall and tries to breathe slowly. “It is the captain’s right to go where he pleases on his ship, especially if he feels he needs medical attention. Do not be so quick to alarm others. If we inform him his _ch’acico_ is in sickbay, and he cannot leave his meeting, or it turns out to be something minor, Syndic Mitth’raw’nuruodo will be unhappy.”

“ _Ch’acico_?” Pellaeon asks quietly, not mangling the word overly much. 

He watches the guards exchange an uncomfortable glance. “Our apologies,” T’hama says after a moment. “We have been forbidden from translating that word.”

“Never stopped you before.”

Annade looks utterly uncomfortable. “Other words never came with threats attached if we translated them. It is not bad, and he will likely tell you in time.”

“We can teach you a different one,” T’hama grins. It makes him look far more boyish than it has any right to, but that spark of mischief in his eye likely has had something to do with it.

Annade brightens up and leans in. These two are trouble when in the mood to make it of themselves. “Or a short phrase. Chiss love — I believe it’s called ‘dirty talk’ in Basic — so you might have heard quite a few Chiss words you don’t know.”

“Some,” Pellaeon manages. Despite his heart’s best attempts to escape, it hasn’t yet managed to burst out of his ribcage, and his guards’ antics are oddly calming.

Annade’s grin matches the mischief in T’hama’s now. They trade a look and Pellaeon is grateful they aren’t a couple. The torment the rest of them might suffer would be enormous. “I bet you’ve heard _‘k’ta nahtehe’oten’i’_.”

That phrase comes out of Thrawn’s lips every time he swallows: he cheeks turn pink. “It sounds familiar.”

“That one took us ages to find a translation for in Basic,” T’hama begins. “I had to get one of your men wasted, drag him to a discreet location, and interrogate him about sexual slang used by Humans.”

“You could have asked Thrawn.”

Annade and T’hama turn lavender at the suggestion: they’re tied for the most intense blush he’s ever seen on a Chiss. “Oh, no, no, no,” Annade defends their methodology. “He would think we were either having sex with Humans and lecture us again about hurting your crew, or would know we were teaching you the cruder aspects of our language, which we are—”

“—Technically—” T’hama puts in.

Annade glances at him and nods once, “—Yes, technically forbidden to do.”

T’hama shifts his feet and leans against the wall next to the captain. “So I had sex with him and asked him to teach me. We’re friends ah — is it ‘with benefits?’” Only when Pellaeon finds the strength to confirm the phrasing does T’hama continue. “And he told me of the slang terms and such that Humans use. Annade double-checked them by using them on Tsomch.”

Pellaeon manages to turn his head to look at Annade without throwing up as the smaller Chiss continues the story. “So that’s how we found out that _‘k’ta nahtehe’oten’i’_ means ‘cum slut’.”

His eyes widen and his jaw drops. What the hell else has Thrawn been calling him? “Are you serious?”

“The direct translation would be ‘fluid slut,’ but that could be someone who drinks a ton of water or jerks off in the shower constantly,” Annade points out. “It also wouldn’t be in the spirit of the original phrase. At all. ‘Cum slut’ is the only correct translation to Basic we can find.”

To think all of this talk and interest in translating dirty talk was coming out of _Annade_ — “It’s always the quiet ones,” Pellaeon mutters as the turbolift comes to a halt. His guards put their professional face back on immediately, but he sees the little smile pulling at the corner of Annade’s lips as he keeps Pellaeon back for T’hama to exit first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The only one I didn’t translate:
> 
>  _ch’ah vosihn Susattein_ = my courageous Corellian
> 
> You can guess things but I’ll probably just laugh or use them for ideas for other fanfic.


	9. A Counterattack: Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When he’s counted to twenty and Thrawn hasn’t responded at all, Pellaeon drops his gaze and stammers out an apology, fearful he will be upset or angry as soon as the shock wears off. Thrawn rolls off him and sits up against the pillows, shoulders shaking slightly, and he has no idea what to do with that. It takes Pellaeon a minute to realize that _Thrawn is laughing_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There’s a lot of Cheunh toward the end. I uh... I didn’t bother to translate it much in the story. Those are at the end. Oops? Also I promise I am an adult who has a lot of sex and I swear to you that it can totally happen this way. Butts are weird, guys.

It takes medical an hour and a half to examine him and find not much wrong at all. The exam is thorough, the lab tests definitive. The CMO reviews his symptoms three times and finds nothing despite the obvious fever and pounding heart in the turbolift moments before, save for a slightly low blood oxygen level and above average pulse rate. Whatever has caused it, all of his symptoms vanished on that short walk. It’s written off as stress — the Moffs, the end of the financial year, Thrawn inevitably leaving on inspection at some point in the near future, the wedding they haven’t even begun to plan, the upcoming campaign — and he is sent to his quarters. Colonel Devaroux prescribes R&R — possibly the worst thing for his stress levels with a growing to-do list — and tells him in a firm and threatening voice to take it easy for a couple of days. 

Sulking on the low sofa in his own quarters with a drink is helping his nerves and a newly forming headache somewhat. This particular bottle is new: a gift sent from an old friend that tastes of almonds and bitters. He has been nursing it for a couple of days now and has just poured two more fingers when Thrawn sends word via his guards that he is finally finished for the day. When Annade warns him Thrawn is returning and has sent orders ahead for Pellaeon to make himself presentable he puts it back in its hiding spot, finishes the glass, and goes to brush his teeth. Even after such a rough day, he doesn’t like the idea of his commanding officer finding him drinking alone. 

That he needs to be presentable off-duty bothers him. Thrawn has seen him wrecked and begging only this very morning. 

Surely he’s not bringing back company. Had Devaroux not reported that he had been in sickbay to Thrawn?

Pellaeon moves the bottle to the better hiding spot in the bedroom on the off-chance that Thrawn does have a guest with him, shuts the bedroom door to play it safe, and goes about getting carefully getting dressed as he comms his guards to find out how presentable he’s expected to be. T’hama confirms with someone else (Pellaeon thinks it sounds like Sumate, the official Captain of the Guard) and takes a deep breath before he answers the question. “You can put on your dress uniform—” that’s not happening, “—and violate the CMO’s orders — and hope neither he nor your fiancé speak to each other in the near future — or you can tell Syndic Mitth’raw’nuruodo what has happened. He wishes to have a formal dinner with you and the Moffs.”

Oh, _Hells_. No. Dealing with Moff Enaid and his idiotic transmission burst has been enough of the man for the next standard month. He isn’t meeting with the man when there is a very real chance he will show actually weakness. Not with one very real headache already. He takes a deep breath of his own and lets it out slowly before he responds. Refusing an order from the Supreme Commander is a violation of protocol and he should be formally disciplined for insubordination. Now that they’re engaged the grand admiral ought to be more strict with him than others of the same rank to show he isn’t playing favorites. That is easy to accept and the stricter discipline is a concept he has been trying to get his fiancé to sit down with him and discuss. This seems to be as good a time as any to do so. 

Refusing an order from the Supreme Commander is a violation of his fiancé orders. Now that they’re engaged, he is refusing a dinner invitation from his future husband: it feels unspeakably rude. They’ve agreed to face the Moffs as a team — both in their professional and personal lives — to handle their nonsense and irritating attempts at usurping this whole thing from them together, and having to say no to Thrawn makes Pellaeon angry at himself. It makes him feel weak. The CMO couldn’t even find anything wrong with him, but he’s still confined to quarters and technically to bedrest for two days, and so can’t help Thrawn face _anything_. That bothers him more than being disciplined ever could.

Should Thrawn find out that Colonel Devaroux ordered him to be on bedrest and he violated that order, broke protocol, and did not bother to inform him he even had those episodes, Thrawn will be _livid_ with him for omitting the information, and Devaroux will keep him confined to quarters for a month out of sheer spite. 

T’hama is still waiting for an answer. Pellaeon has to make a decision. “Please extend my apologies to the Grand Admiral, and inform him that I must decline his gracious invitation.”

If Thrawn is with the Moffs already, they definitely don’t need to know why. Thrawn won’t like it, but Thrawn will trust him.

T’hama is completely silent for a moment as Sumate relays the message in the background in Cheunh: Pellaeon is certain T’hama expected him to take the more rebellious route and claim he is fine. “Do you want us to bar him from entering when he demands to speak with you in person?” he asks more quietly.

“No,” he answers with a sigh. The air leaves him in a rush, as though it was all that was keeping him from sinking onto the bed. He strips down to the bare necessities and hides under his blankets, uncaring for once that his duty uniform is on the floor. Pellaeon feels too tired to handle it right now. Maybe it’s the threat of dealing with Moffs, or the double threat of Thrawn and the colonel. 

He just hopes that if he’s comfortable and vulnerable Thrawn will lie down with him for a while as he hears Pellaeon out. Perhaps he can be convinced to reschedule the meal.

“Ask him to please be quiet if he enters, and warn him I feel unwell. Don’t tell him anything else he doesn’t already know: I’ll handle it.”

T’hama acknowledges him, and Pellaeon hopes he’ll do as he’s told. It likely won’t take long to find out whom he obeys. Thrawn sent word ahead, which either means he expects his fiancé to be ready when he arrives, or to be nearly ready when he emerges from his quarters.

His fiancé turns up in the captain’s quarters still in his duty uniform less than three minutes later looking concerned: he had either been on his way up to arrive that fast or already in his own rooms.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, sitting on the bed next to Pellaeon. One hand goes right to stroking through his hair, soothing them both with the pleasing sensation of caring — and being cared — for. 

“I don’t know.” It irritates him that he didn’t get anything beyond a non-answer in sickbay, and he lets it show on his face for a moment before reaching a hand out from under the blankets to rest on Thrawn’s knee. “I feel _off_. I had an odd episode of disorientation on the bridge where it looked like the _Chimaera_ was tilting sideways in atmosphere — but nothing was rolling, and no one else was alarmed by it — and an episode of fever and increased heart rate from the Officer’s Lounge all the way down to sickbay.

“I feel like it happened to a different person, almost. Dizziness, disorientation, disassociation, fever, almost a sense of panic.” Pellaeon’s thumb plays over the bumps in the bones of Thrawn’s knee as he talks, and his voice sounds like it’s coming from far away to him.

Thrawn’s hand goes still in his hair for a moment before he resumes playing with it. “You had to go to sickbay and didn’t think to notify me?” His voice is soft, and there’s obvious hurt on his face. “Why didn’t you tell me immediately?”

“Because you’re also the Supreme Commander of the Imperial Military, and you need to be focused on that _first_. Had they found anything, I would have informed you immediately.” Pellaeon’s hand slides farther up Thrawn’s thigh, then up his side to rest on his flank. “I would absolutely tell you straight away if it was an emergency. This was, apparently, not one.”

The hurt fades in the face of logic and Pellaeon breathes easier. It has been a while since he’s been tense enough to hold his breath. “Okay.” And that seems to be that. “What did Devaroux say?”

Pellaeon rolls his eyes. “Devaroux thinks it’s stress. So I’ve been sent to try to relax for two days consecutive days, as though letting the list of things I need to do get longer is going to make me feel better.”

Thrawn looks thoughtfully down at him. “You could get a lot of work done in two days with no interruptions from the bridge. Surely he knows you won’t entirely listen to him.” His lover knows him well: Pellaeon has long been terrible at completely following any orders for bed rest. The long recovery period following the last foiled assassination attempt on Thrawn had been marked by disputes between Pellaeon and the CMO as to whether or not doing any work was healthy for him. Thrawn had needed to get involved several times to keep — or restore — peace. The red eyes narrow as Thrawn makes a decision and implements it, along with his conditions. “I’ll allow you to work from your quarters — yours or mine, wherever you feel most comfortable — provided you feel up to it. But if myself, your ADCs, or any of the guards feel your health is worsening or you’re pushing yourself too hard, I will allow them all to call Colonel Devaroux. You will obey his orders, my dear Captain.”

“Fair enough,” Pellaeon concedes, and ignores the way his cheeks flush at being called _‘my dear’_. That means he can go back to getting stuff done tonight. He tries to sit up, only to find a blue hand on his chest holding him down. 

“Starting _tomorrow,_ ” his future husband adds on sternly. The look in his eyes reminds Pellaeon of the look he received when they got off the turbolift earlier. Allowing him a quiet workspace isn’t what he has in mind. “I believe your orders for tonight are to relax, are they not?”

Because he knows it’s irritating (and yes, perhaps because Thrawn finds it inexplicably arousing), Pellaeon smirks when he answers, “Yes, Admiral.”

He receives a withering glare for it, but finds it difficult to be frightened when Thrawn pulls off his boots and then stands to remove his belt. Exhaustion and feeling off-kilter do little to stop the captain from practically salivating as Thrawn drops it to the floor. Sometimes he has dreams about the ways in which that belt might be used on him. Pellaeon isn’t quite ready to broach that topic yet, but the thought still makes him shiver. Thrawn lets him watch as he finishes disrobing, a few other ideas come into Pellaeon’s mind for the belt. 

For the boots.

For the gloves. 

By the time Thrawn comes out of the refresher after disappearing into it, Pellaeon is equally naked beneath the covers, stroking himself to flights of fancy, and well on his way to full arousal. Thrawn is as well, and Pellaeon is quite appreciative for the eyeful. He’s permitted to look for a moment, then to slide to the edge of the bed and give the head a few worshipful kisses before Thrawn’s had enough of that and waves a hand: a wordless command for Pellaeon to slide over. Eagerly, Thrawn climbs into bed and presses up against him beneath the blankets. The first thing he does once he’s comfortable is slide a hand down Pellaeon’s torso to see how hard he is. 

Pellaeon pulls him in for a kiss as the hand wraps around his cock to give it a more few firm strokes. The kiss is permitted, enthusiastically returned, and Pellaeon takes that as permission to touch. His hands lift as he’s rolled onto his back, and Thrawn shivers as Pellaeon rakes his nails over the other male’s scalp and down the back of his neck. It’s a weakness he’s been exploiting during oral, and it has its uses during other intimate moments.

“What is it you wish?” Thrawn asks when he does it for the fourth time while they’ve been kissing. 

“I like the way you shiver against me when I do that,” Pellaeon answers, honest and open with him. “Sometimes you gasp, or you moan around my cock when it’s in your mouth.” It’s not often Thrawn gives him the chance to say anything dirty, but given the opportunity, he isn’t going to be shy about doing it now that he knows the other man might like it. He looks Thrawn right in the eye when he says it.

The heated look it brings to his lover’s eyes is all-too encouraging. “Tell me what you thought of this morning,” Thrawn requests, at once enraptured by his words. 

Annade was serious about the dirty talk thing. Oh _stars_. He can talk dirty, even if he’s a little rusty, and hasn’t had any practice with a man. Surely it can’t be that different from being with a woman. “I liked being woken up to sex,” Pellaeon begins, carding his hands through Thrawn’s hair, watching his reactions closely. “But I especially liked feeling your cock against my hole for the first time. Annade told me about how you’ll teach me to handle having you inside me. I wasn’t very excited about it before this morning. You’ve given me something to look forward to.”

It’s clear from the intensity of that red-eyed gaze that his fiancé is hanging on his every word. “I want to feel you cum inside me every damn time,” he breathes, “especially once you’re buried balls deep.” Thrawn groans and tries to kiss him, but Pellaeon stops him with two fingers between their lips. It doesn’t stop his lover from trying to kiss him around them as he speaks. “Hearing you call me your cum slut this morning was hot. Is that what you want, Thrawn? A willing and obedient husband to take your load for you?”

He swears Thrawn growls in the instant before he bats Pellaeon’s hand out of the way. Both of his hands are grabbed — fingers intertwined with Thrawn’s — and his hands are swiftly pinned down on either side of his head. The kiss he’s given is the roughest he’s ever had in his long life: the right buttons have clearly been pressed to turn Thrawn from doting fiancé to hungry conqueror. There will be no complaints out of him, not when his entire body moves into the kiss and up against Thrawn’s out of instinct. 

When the kiss breaks, it’s only because someone has to breathe. Maybe it’s him. It doesn’t matter, not when they’re both gasping desperately for air before diving back into the kiss. Pellaeon rolls his hips just to watch Thrawn’s eyes flash before he kisses him again. 

The sounds he’s making are small, needy whimpers that Thrawn greedily muffles with his mouth as sucks on Pellaeon’s tongue. His hips rock down against the Human’s, gliding their cocks together. Pellaeon is hoping for a repeat of this morning, to a degree, but he’s not counting on Thrawn’s endurance this time. None of their previous relations have involved him being this worked up to start with.

Thrawn has teeth in his neck now, above the line of his collar, and Pellaeon has to grip his hands tightly to endure. It feels good, so good, but the bite also hurts. Another rough bite makes him cry out and try to pull away, and Thrawn soothes it with his tongue and a kiss, murmuring apologies as he regains control of himself immediately. Pellaeon relaxes, and Thrawn kisses him again, slower, more gentle now, but with no less passion.

“Do you want me to stop?” he asks, and rests their forehead together for a moment. The Chiss is breathing hard, and hasn’t stopped moving his hips.

“No,” Pellaeon responds. He is startled, but he’s never been this turned on in his life. Knowing he has this power over Thrawn is exhilarating.

It’s exhilarating, and he has every intention of exploiting it.

“I told you what I wanted already, did I not?” Stubbornness is one of his best tools against Thrawn: Pellaeon has never hesitated to dig in his heels when it matters. He frees his hands solely to pull Thrawn’s head back so he can properly see his eyes. That he does it by Thrawn’s hair takes him by surprise. 

Thrawn _shivers_. “Yes,” he answers quietly, unnaturally still once the shiver passes: a warrior at rest, watching his opponent for challenge, or perhaps — he hopes, though it is far less likely — a soldier awaiting orders.

Pellaeon quirks an eyebrow, heart racing. While he has challenged plenty of Thrawn’s orders and decisions, he has never dared presumed to _give him an order_. What if this is too bold? The consequences if this backfires could be awful. “Then get me ready to feel you cum inside me.” 

That he says it confidently surprises him. He’s certain some degree of nervousness shows on his face. Overstepping boundaries during sex has already been a major issue for them and the idea that he could be pushing his luck still makes Pellaeon nervous. Reason tells him Thrawn wouldn’t have brought it up this morning if he didn’t want to do it again. Reason also makes certain to tell him that they had clearly discussed who is in charge and when, and he is grossly out of bounds. Risks should only be taken if the payoff will be greater than what is being risked. Thrawn has drilled it into him. Stepping out of bounds for this — is it too much? Pellaeon must have miscalculated. It has to be why his lover isn’t reacting at all: Thrawn hasn’t moved at all and it’s been several seconds. 

All he’s doing is staring at the Human in shock.

When he’s counted to twenty and Thrawn hasn’t responded at all, Pellaeon drops his gaze and stammers out an apology, fearful he will be upset or angry as soon as the shock wears off. Thrawn rolls off him and sits up against the pillows, shoulders shaking slightly, and he has no idea what to do with that. It takes Pellaeon a minute to realize that _Thrawn is laughing_. 

“What in the Empire are you laugh—?” he starts, angry, indignant, and embarrassed, when Thrawn bends and kisses him until he stops trying to yell at the man.

“Not at you, Gilad,” Thrawn promises when he pulls away with both hands raised in surrender. “You caught me completely off-guard. Continuously, it seems, you find new ways to delight me and surprise me.” 

Thrawn rolls over to snatch the bottle of lubricant from the drawer under the bed as Pellaeon rolls his eyes at him. “It _surprised_ you?” he asks. “My asking for—” Cheeks flushing red, Pellaeon gestures vaguely as Thrawn rolls back over. 

“The manner in which you made the request did,” Thrawn responds softly. He sits up again and gestures for his lover to lift his hips: two pillows are slid under them to keep them elevated. “I was not expecting to find it as attractive as I did.”

Pellaeon huffs, irritated despite the innocent explanation. “You like it when I get demanding?” His hips are up higher than they have been any of the times Thrawn has given him oral. What is his plan, then?

The lube is uncapped, and then he feels a slick finger circling his entrance. Pellaeon gasps and tenses momentarily before Thrawn kisses up the inside of a thigh. “I do,” he answers. “That you already know what you want from me is arousing. I don’t have to guess.”

A hot tongue flicks over his balls, drawing a loud curse from him. Wicked laughter vibrates the other man’s lips against his skin, and the tip of his finger breaches him. The curse Pellaeon bites out trails off into a sharp kiss that is followed by a moan as the finger glides farther in. “Very good, Gilad,” Thrawn praises. “I want you to work on taking this whole finger for me tonight.”

If the rest of the finger feels that good, he’ll be happy to oblige. Once the finger is worked in to the second knuckle Thrawn begins experimenting with how he moves it. Instead of attempting to piston it in and out in a mimicry of what Thrawn is working him up to, his lover opts to move his finger in an agonizingly slow circle that Pellaeon finds he quite likes. Certainly, it is enough to have him gasping as the rest of the finger is worked into him with the same motion. Thrawn wraps his unoccupied hand around Pellaeon's cock and lets his thumb gently rub over the underside.

"You took my whole finger, and you did it so quickly. I can feel you clenching around me: how tight you are. It's going to take time to get you used to this, Gilad." Personally, he is fine with that. Thrawn has withdrawn slightly and is rubbing the pad of his finger in a light, circular motion over his prostate that sends him from gasping to letting out the neediest moan he's ever heard himself make.

And Thrawn wants to use his _entire cock_ to do this.

Maybe that’s for the best, because it becomes clear after a while that one finger is not enough. Tired of letting Thrawn control the speed and depth, Pellaeon lets out a frustrated groan and impatiently pushes down to fuck himself on the digit. He looks up at Thrawn's face as he moves.

Even when he'd finally gotten to examine _Kilik Twilight_ , free of sand and up close, Thrawn hadn't looked this enchanted. It occurs to Pellaeon that Thrawn is looking at him with something akin to reverence in his eyes. "You're doing so well. Look at you." His eyes match the worshipful tone of voice. "Shall I add another finger?"

"Please," Pellaeon begs. A gasp cuts off the end of the word as he feels a second digit pressing in alongside the first. 

"Don't tense: relax," Thrawn instructs him. "If it's too much tell me."

It’s almost painful — almost too much due to his own inexperience — right until both fingers slide over his prostate. A full body shiver that starts in his tailbone and goes through the core of him has Thrawn gripping his cock in such a way as to prevent him from cumming. "Do it again," Pellaeon demands after the sensation has passed.

Cocking an eyebrow, perhaps in disbelief at the sudden enthusiasm, Thrawn obeys. Little by little, his fingers repeat the notion at increasing speeds and depths, until Pellaeon is a wanton mess beneath him and Thrawn can’t bring himself to look away for a long time. When Thrawn's hand leaves his cock and he hears the sound of the lube again, Pellaeon whimpers. It won’t be long now until Thrawn is finishing inside him. Thrawn shifts to his knees, stroking himself in time with the quick, hard thrusts of his fingers into his lover. Their eyes meet and lock: it is obvious Thrawn is done for.

He scissors his fingers, opening Pellaeon further, then withdraws them so he can use them to spread the other man wide. Pellaeon forces himself to relax in anticipation as he feels Thrawn position himself. Neither of them expect a small wiggle of Pellaeon's hips when his fiancé presses the head of his cock against his entrance to push it inside.

Both of them gasp. Thrawn swears in Cheunh and two other languages Pellaeon has never heard before.

There is a stretch but little pain, Pellaeon decides as they stare at each other, panting and uncertain. Cautiously, he clenches his muscles around the head and feels precum drip from his own. He closes his eyes, wills his body to relax as he takes a deep breath, and looks back up into Thrawn's face. There is hope there, naked lust, and also worry and fear. 

Reassurance can be easily provided.

"You're not deep enough," Pellaeon manages to say. He isn’t going to last: the moment Thrawn moves may well be it for him.

“I fear I’m going to cum embarrassingly quickly,” Thrawn rasps out in a strained voice.

Pellaeon moans. “So will I. You might as well be buried inside me when we do.”

Another string of invectives in Cheunh is the answer to that, followed by Thrawn bending low to kiss him. “I will fuck you as long as I can. Try to hold off for me, Gilad.”

“Thrawn, _move_!”

Failure to specify the speed at which his lover should move is Pellaeon’s own fault, in hindsight. Thrawn is damn slow about the initial push the rest of the way into him, and just as slow for the first couple of thrusts. It lets them both savor it.

It drives him mad.

They lose themselves in the sensation of each other quickly: Pellaeon knows the moment his entire world narrows down to the way it feels having Thrawn moving inside him that he will be perfectly happy to be married to this man if this is what the sex is going to feel like. It takes less than ten thrusts for him to cum, making a mess of his own chest and face as Thrawn fucks into him. Thrawn doesn’t last long at all once Pellaeon cums: he buries himself inside his lover as he empties his load into him.

Afterward, Thrawn fetches a washcloth to clean his lover, but has him keep his hips elevated a while longer as he murmurs delicious and filthy words in Pellaeon’s ear about how well he has pleased Thrawn. Thrawn spends a good deal of time telling him how well he’s doing, keeping his cum inside him. When he’s ready for him to lower his hips, he first pushes three teasing fingers into the Human’s hole to show him how loose he still is, that his seed is still there, then removes the pillows and replaces them with a towel. 

Pellaeon is definitely addicted to this, and understands why some of his girlfriends hated condoms so much. He understands why they begged for him to cum inside them. There’s something to be said for hearing a man tell you how well you’ve taken his load. Feeling it dripping back out is quite nice, nearly as nice as being fingered and having it pushed back inside, or spread over his thighs and stomach as a way for Thrawn to mark him as his own.

As though the galaxy doesn’t know it, he reminds Thrawn, as he’s drifting off. The smug chuckle makes him shiver. It’s the sound of a man who is far too pleased with himself. Thrawn feels so good, and Pellaeon is warm and tired. It’s little wonder he falls asleep soon after the exchange and wakes up to what feels like a hot brick wrapped around him hours later. 

The grand admiral has decided to cancel the dinner and stay with his future husband then. His chest is pressed flush against Pellaeon’s back: their bodies align neatly. Legs tangle together, both arms are wrapped possessively around his lover, lips pressed to his shoulder, and half-hard cock digging into one of his ass cheeks: Thrawn sleeps like the doting and protective husband he’s already showing he will be. It’s sweet, and Pellaeon feels himself immediately beginning to drift back off. He feels warm, safe, and isn’t sure at all what could have woken him up.

Until it registers that he hears a strange hissing sound. Pellaeon frowns, and lifts his head off his pillow to look around for it. Whatever it is, it’s soft, barely audible enough to sound out of place. At his age he’s had enough sleepless nights in his quarters to know every sound they should make. That isn’t one of them. Regretfully, he prods Thrawn awake.

“The kriff, Gil—?” is the grouchy response to being woken up. 

“Hush and listen,” he instructs. Thrawn’s head lifts off the pillow as he obeys.

After a moment Thrawn sits up completely and starts glancing around the captain’s room for the source of the noise. “Nothing in here should do that,” he murmurs.

Pellaeon sits up as well. “I know that: it’s what woke me.”

Thrawn stands, pulls on a pair of pants, and tosses Pellaeon’s to him as he calls in the guards to aid in searching the room. The captain finds himself immediately and bodily removed to his lover’s sitting room to wait in safety with Thrawn.

The return of his headache and the disorientation don’t start until Thrawn’s comlink goes off. “ _Csei s cart_ Annade. _Nah k'un'bah ch'a ch'itkashn vtit'i can ch'a roncan'ibi cattir._ T’hama _cart tuz ch'at k'ascah hah. Ch'ah cart ch'acan'b sir to Roncan'ibi vim En'he'an'easi Sakn ch'at vuv ch'ah turco k'tin'v sesvio'ah veo hah tuzir cart. Hah limn'ah cavrcah bah tuv. To vtit'i cart tovun'csivci csah ch'a hir csei k'tisah cseah ch'ehbiti vascoci._ ”1

Despite his headache, Pellaeon catches some of it, and makes a noise of agreement. “It looks out of place because there shouldn’t be a valve in that vent,” he comments quietly and rubs at the bridge of his nose. “It’s a matter of crew safety. None of the vents that circulate air into living or work spaces should have anything like that in them.”

Thrawn nods, and relays the information to Annade. He pauses for a moment, then asks, “Annade, _veah k’ir vah vun veo ch’ehbiti vascoci g’ebusi cseah_?” 2

“How does he know what _what_ smells like?” Pellaeon asks Sumate, sitting next to him on the sofa, keeping an eerily close eye on him.

“Bitters of some kind. Almond?” Sumate glances up at Thrawn, who nods.

Pellaeon tries to nod instead of doing anything else that would give away how he knows — especially when Annade just flat out disconnects — but the nod causes another problem. The room is sent spinning again, this time too rapidly for him to do anything about it but close his eyes. 

“Gilad!” Thrawn calls sharply. His hands are on his knees, and Pellaeon manages to open his eyes. “T’hama! _Vuv sir to vosiserci_!” 3

“My head is killing me,” he manages to tell Thrawn, “and the room is tilting again.”

“ _Ch’acico,_ you have to stay awake until the medics get here.” Thrawn looks frantic. Pellaeon has only seen Thrawn look panicked like that four times. None of them had very good immediate outcomes. 

He tries to move a hand to grip Thrawn’s and reassure him, but his limbs feel like lead. It takes a massive amount of willpower to try. “I can’t move my hand.” Thrawn’s eyes drop down to his Pellaeon tries. 

Their eyes meet again, and Thrawn is done waiting for medics. “I’m going to pick you and take you to sickbay myself.”

The last thing Pellaeon is aware that he’s aware of is being wrapped in warm, caring arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1.) “This is Annade. We found an open valve in a maintenance vent. T’hama was able to close it. I am waiting for the Maintenance and Engineering Chief to call me back about what it could be. It seems out of place. The valve was releasing a gas that smelled like almond bitters.”  
> 2.) “Annade, how do you know what almond bitters smells like?”  
> 3.) “Call the doctor!” Medic and sickbay don’t work in everybody’s fave Star Wars language translator for Cheunh. It has to be either “doctor (medical)” or one of those sexy fuckers with a Ph.D.


End file.
